


Angel?

by Neaborealis



Category: Maximum Ride, Maximum Ride - James Patterson, SPN, Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Angst, Crossover, Demons, Fighting, Flying, Gen, POV First Person, Teen Angst, The Winchesters - Freeform, Vampires, bad communication skills, teen relationship angst, the whole shebang, vampyvamp angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 04:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 21
Words: 27,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2335874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neaborealis/pseuds/Neaborealis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max and her mini flock take a rest in an old barn, where they are ambushed by a nest of vamps, and Max is taken captive.  Sam and Dean Winchester come to wipe out the nest, but are also captured and more than a little confused by Max. The Flock joins forces with the Winchesters to determine the Flock's parents and true origins.</p><p>Will completely disregard events and answers revealed in Nevermore. Not really sure where in the timeline of each universe this is set.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sugar, We're Going Down

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work in progress and my first fic. I may delete or edit chapters already posted to alter the story line. 
> 
> PLEASE comment! I'd love to know what you think. 
> 
> If you're interested, follow my Pinterest inspiration board for insight to future chapters. https://www.pinterest.com/linneanoelle/maximum-ride/
> 
> I'm not very good at updating regularly, sorry. I promise this fic isn't dead!

 

It’s true that the middle of the country all looks exactly the same. _America, the beautiful, goddamn endless waves of grain_.

I’ve been looking for somewhere to spend the night for the past hour, but we obviously can’t pull in at any old farmhouse or motel. Can you imagine the conversation?

“ _Hello, yes we don’t have any money, and by letting us sleep here, you’re putting your life at risk because we’re living, breathing lab rats on the run from crazy scientists, but can we spend the night, please?”_

I scan ahead of us once again, and notice an abandoned barn about a half-mile away. There’s no farmhouse nearby and the only harvest anyone’s going to get from those fields are weeds, so I decide it looks sufficiently deserted and inconspicuous. I shout over my shoulder at the rest of my friends--family, really.

“Follow my lead! We’re gonna drop down here up ahead!”

I stop propelling myself and glide down slowly in large, graceful circles. As we descend through the clear, warm air, I close my eyes and breath in, slowly and deeply. We approach the barn and I get ready for a running landing. I flap my wings several times to decrease my momentum, but end up landing with too much speed and crashing into the dusty soil. I pick myself up as the rest of my mini-flock drops down near me.

I examine the barn that now stands in front of me. We’ve landed right in front of two massive sliding doors that are the main entrance to the abandoned barn. At some point, the barn sported a bright coat of red paint, but now the faded paint peels off in long strips. I turn around to the rest of my flock.

Nudge, the ever fashion-conscious 14-year old, is busy brushing the dust off of her capris, and 6-year old Angel is trying unsuccessfully to hug Total while retying one of her pink sneakers.

Ari stands awkwardly, waiting to follow my lead like usual. He probably feels bad for splitting our flock up; oh yeah, and maybe for trying to kills us those one or two or a dozen times.

“Come on gang, let’s check out the inside of this place.” We’ve been flying nonstop since this morning, and now the sun is sinking fast towards the horizon. Not only that, but my mini-flock deserves a break. With the other half of us off doing God knows what, everyone’s been low on morale, and I’m exhausted even _trying_ to keep their spirits up.

I walk up and grab the handle of one of the doors and tug on it, to no avail. I pull harder, using my weight for extra force.

“Is it too heavy to move?” Nudge asks.

“I don’t know,” I reply, frowning.

“Maybe it’s rusted in place,” Angel offers.

I nod. “Could be. I have no idea how long this thing has been abandoned.”

Ari reaches out for the handle and pulls, hard. Even with his Eraser strength, it still doesn’t budge.

“All the mutant muscle in the world couldn’t move this thing,” Total observes, almost as if he was personally offended by the door.

“Let’s try another door,” Nudge suggests.

“Sounds good,” I agree, turning and following a dusty path around the right side of the barn.

Sure enough, on the far end of the barn is a backdoor. I easily open the outer screen door that hangs pitifully on rusty hinges. The wooden door behind it is unlocked, but warped wood has jammed the door in its frame. I shove it with my shoulder, and dust flies everywhere as it opens abruptly.

I look around and up into the cobweb-adorned beams as I enter. The setting sun filters through the door, illuminating the upset dust particles dancing in the air. My foot hits a beer bottle and knocks it over. Rusty-colored beer spills out of it, forming a puddle.

“Blech, gross,” Nudge remarks.

Total enters the barn, stepping carefully as if the ground could swallow him up at any moment.

“Ooh, hammocks!” Angel exclaims, pointing at what appears to be dirty rope hanging between the vertical beams of the stalls. Nudge follows her over to look at the interesting beds.

I feel Ari’s presence behind me and turn to look at him. He carefully massages a shoulder with one hand.

“You good?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Physically or mentally?”

“Either one,” I respond.

“Feel like hell.”

“Is that physically or mentally?”

“Both,” he grimaces, “but don’t worry about me.”

I give him half a smile that probably conveys more pity than encouragement, then turn away to watch the younger girls trying to keep from falling out of the hammocks. Total has perched himself on top of one of the higher beams and watches them with amusement as he grooms his paws.

I walk over to the hammock nearest the big barn doors and hang my backpack on a hook attached to a post. I pull out some fruit cups for the girls, a can of ravioli to share with Ari, and a half-full water bottle. “Grab something to eat, guys. I know I, for one, am starving.”

As we devour our meal, I start talking. “I figure we’re somewhere in the middle of Kansas, which means we could probably make it to Colorado tomorrow.”

Nudge nods. It was her idea--go back to our old house in Colorado, see if anything’s left. No one’s been there since before we left for New York to rescue Angel from the Institute; I guess we’re all sentimentalists at heart.

“Are we spending the night here then?” Angel asks, looking up at me with her innocent blue eyes.

“So long as you all want to.” I shrug. She squeals and high-fives Nudge in excitement. I smile, glad that even after all we’ve been through we retain some capability of human happiness.

After eating, we fly up to sit on the roof and watch the sun set. Luckily the decrepit beams don’t collapse underneath us as we watch the changing colors of the clouds streaking across the sky. It looks like someone took a paintbrush and streaked the sky with pinks, oranges, and glowing, glowing reds.

The sun finally sets, but we stay up there, unwilling to leave our peaceful perch. Angel cuddles up to me as the sky darkens, Total asleep in her lap. I’m lost in my thoughts when her timid voice breaks through my consciousness.

“Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight,” she sings quietly, “I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight.” When she finishes she clasps her hands together and squeezes her eyes shut. I wonder briefly what she’s wishing for. What could a six-year old mutant with beautiful white wings and the ability to read minds wish for?

I look back up at the sky and gaze at the tiny pinpricks of light appearing overhead. I silently wish, _please keep my Flock safe and together._ I think of Fang and remember the look of betrayal on his face when I refused to kick Ari out. He looked at me like I had gone crazy, like he didn’t even know me.

 _He hates me_ , I realize. God, I wish he didn’t.

Angel snuggles up closer to me, _He doesn’t hate you._

I realize she’s reading my mind and I’m hearing her voice only in my mind. _Don’t worry about it sweetie. You shouldn’t have to worry about this._

Angel looks up at me, her eyes pure and honest. _He doesn’t hate you, Max. He’s just upset because he doesn’t want to admit that Ari changed, and he feels like you chose Ari over him. He really doesn’t hate you, Max. The reason he’s so upset is because he loves you._

What she says startles me and I shake my head.

“Let’s go back inside and go to sleep. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

Angel sighs, then picks up Total and stands up. She extends her wings through the slits in the back of her pale blue dress and walks to the end of the roof and jumps off.  

“Come on, guys,” I call to Nudge and Ari as I stand up and extend my own wings. I launch myself from where I’m standing and with several powerful pushes, I soar up above the barn. I circle around several times before descending near the back door. Nudge and Ari are only moments behind me.

Ari opts to sleep on the floor. I collapse in my own hammock, heart and body exhausted. I intend to stay up on watch, but my thoughts stray away from my surroundings to what Angel said on the roof.

I can’t deal with the emotions if I believe what she says. Fang...loving me? That just comes with too many complications. I can’t think about that when I’m trying to save the fucking world.

_Love is complicated, Max._

I sigh. _Go to sleep, Angel._

 _This isn’t Angel, Max_.

What a delight, my favorite little voice is back. What do you want, Voice?

_There’s no need for sarcasm. I have always had your best intentions in mind. Remember I said that, Max._

Of course, because I’m always supposed to listen to what you say.

_It’s never hurt you before, has it?_

I unintentionally smile a bit. I guess it hasn’t.

The Voice doesn’t reply and I eventually drift to sleep.

…

My eyes snap open. Completely alert, I do a silent sweep of the barn. Something woke me, but everything remains undisturbed. Nudge snores softly and Total is curled up next to Angel.

I relax slightly and settle back down in the hammock, when the barns doors emit a huge groan and loud screech and begin to open, gaining speed and revealing a dozen individuals standing behind them, illuminated by the beams of car headlights.

“What the f--” I manage to stutter as the doors slam all the way open and the people standing began walking towards me. “Surprise sweetheart!” A voice calls out.

I jump out of the hammock and step forward towards them. “Max!” Angel screams from behind me.

“Get out, Angel!” I continue to face these attackers head on as the rest of my flock scrambles around in the darkness.

“I’m so happy to meet you. Max, is that your name?” The sickly sweet voice is merely a thin mask of the danger lurking beneath. The group of people stops walking and I identify the source of the voice. A young woman, clearly the leader of the group, steps towards me and smirks.

“Max c’mon!” Nudge calls out from behind me.

“Don’t wait for me. Ari! Get them out of here!” I should over my shoulder. Hopefully these attackers didn’t block off the back door.

 _Fight or flight fight or flight fight or flight…_ I’m so fucked.

I make my decision and stand my ground.

“You’re trespassing, honey,” the woman sneers. “This is our property.”

“Oh really?” I cock my head to the side sarcastically, “I don’t see your name on it.”

“How dare you,” a man standing behind the leader growls and steps toward me as if he were ready to lunge at me, but she snaps out her arm, signaling him to stand down.

Ignoring his actions, she looks at me with interest. “Are you a virgin, sweetie?” She looks over at the man now glowering at me with a look I can only describe as bloodthirsty. “The Boss has been looking for some new virgins lately, hasn’t he, Rick?”

The man exchanges a glance with her and grins. “Yeah Tani, he has.”

She looks back at me, then with mock politeness, exclaims, “Oh my! I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Tani, and I’ll be serving you today.” There are snickers from the group at the inside joke I apparently don’t get.

She steps towards me and extends her hand to shake. I cross my arms and glare at her, challenging her, and looking her over. She’s slender, they all are, but I get the feeling they’re all much stronger than they look.

 _Max, where are you?_ Angel’s voice, even through telepathy, pleads with me.

_Just leave without me, Angel. Get out of here!_

Tani clenches her jaw and barks an order. “Derek, Jennifer, Matt, Allison, Liam, and Chris go find those other brats that got out the back door.” The people named jump to follow her orders, splitting up to cover more ground.

_I won’t leave without you Max!_

I inhale sharply and stare down Tani. _Angel they’re coming for you right now. Fly away and I’ll catch up soon!_

She holds up her arm and grins at me; when she snaps her fingers, the remaining four people lunge towards me. I twist around, my sneakers skidding in the dust as I try to run away. I get several feet before I slip and stumble forwards. A woman grabs my sweatshirt, yanking me back. I rip myself away and sprint towards the back door, only to realize three of the others have noticed the scuffle and are heading towards me from the other direction. I’m fucking cornered.

Luckily, unplanned snap decisions are my speciality. I step forward and unfurl all my 14 feet of wings as I jump into the air. My muscles resist the sudden exertion and I struggle, pushing with all my might to gain height above these attackers.

I feel a hand wrap around my ankle, and before I know it, my whole body slams into the ground, head pounding and the air knocked out of my lungs. I gasp for breath and force myself to sit up, staring straight into Tani’s face. I see three things: smugness, confusion, and fear.

At this point, there’s a grand total of nine people surrounding me. Unless I suddenly gain the ability to teleport, there’s no way out. I extend my wings and stand up, trying to look confident and menacing as I struggle to refill my lungs with air.

I hear muttering and whispers from the group, who have now backed up several feet and are keeping their distance. “Is she an angel?” “I thought you couldn’t see angels’ wings.” “What the hell?”

An angel? Give me a break. I haven’t heard that since those crack-heads in Virginia. Tani shakes her head in bewilderment, but doesn’t back up.

“She’s no angel,” I hear a man declare behind me. I spin around to face him and find myself at eye level with his muscular chest. I take a hasty step back. “As if I haven’t heard that before.”

He cracks his knuckles, in the stereotypical cartoon-bully move, and I struggle to hold back a laugh. It only aggravates him more and he steps towards me. I don’t know who or what these people are, but I’m done with this shit. Could be they’re dangerous, but they’ve never seen the likes of me before, and they have no business threatening my flock.

“Good luck,” I smirk at him, and he flips.

His first punches aim for my stomach, but I easily dodge the expected attack, retracting my wings to keep them out the way. This is close-quarter fighting. Jeb trained us for this shit.

No. Stop. Don’t think about Jeb, Max.

I duck under another blow, then aim a kick at his shin.

My sneakers connect with hard bone. _MOtherFUCcker._ I think I just broke a toe. He winces, though, and shifts his weight to his other leg. While his guard is down, I punch him in the abdomen, right where I think the kidney is supposed to be, then knee him right in the crotch. He lets out a groan of pain, and I punch again, not even bothering to aim at this point.

To my surprise, the rest of their group has stayed back, forming a circle around a fight the way kids do. Tani stands rigid, arms crossed, watching attentively.

He lets out what I can only describe as a roar, and grabs for me. His hands catch my hair and pull. What is this, a catfight? Nevertheless, my hands fly to my head to reclaim my hair, and he takes the opportunity to punch me right in the chest.

It feels like I’ve been hit by a semi-truck. I gasp and stumble backward. Lungs screaming, I eye him warily, calculating my next move. It will be close, but I have just enough room.  

He lunges for me, and I dodge to the right, causing him to stumble headfirst and crash into the circle surrounding us.  

I back up, making sure I have enough room. Just as he picks himself up off the ground, I take two running steps, extend my wings, and leap into the air. I aim for his head, and my feet connect. His head snaps backward, his neck broken.

I land with both feet on the ground, victorious. I glare around at the circle, daring someone to make a move. My eyes meet Tani’s and I give a slight smirk.

Her jaw clenches. “Get her,” she whispers venomously.

Before I have time to react or defend myself, the rest of the group is on top of me. I feel my arms wrenched backwards as my body is pummeled with punches, scratches, and kicks. I wince and twist around, trying to defend myself. One well aimed kick to the back of my knees, and I fall to the floor.

I hear the sharp crack of breaking bones and a split second later, the pain neurons fire from my right wing to my brain. It’s all I can do to keep from screaming.

“Enough!” Tani yells, and slowly the mass of people attacking me back up. “Lock her up.”

What? Where? I glance around frantically as two of them haul me up off the floor and force me towards the farthest corner of the barn.

It seems that earlier, I had apparently lost the ability to observe my surroundings. Otherwise, how could I have missed something so sinister, so familiar? Yes, they were hidden, tucked away in the darkest corner of the barn, but I should have seen, I should have been more careful.

Cages. Three of them. We’re not talking dog crates, either; these are tall enough to stand in, with padlocks the size of my hand. All empty.

"Max!"

I look around and see Angel's small frame, silhouetted by moonlight,  standing in the doorway to the side door, Total at her feet.  

"Angel get out of here!" I struggle with the people holding me, but my limbs are too tired and they are too strong.

Nudge appears and grabs her arm, pulling her away.  She resists, struggling to stay in my line of sight.  "Not without you!"  

Several of the goons who initially attacked me see her and start heading her direction. God fucking dammit.

“Angel! GO! I’ll be alright,” I cry out to her.

“No you won’t,” Tani snarls from behind me as she hits me over the head with what feels like a beer bottle. Pinpricks of light dance in front of my eyes and I grasp my head. I feel something sticky.

 _Max, I'm sorry_ , Angel is practically sobbing in my head.

 _It's okay Angel, it's not your fault._ Someone grabs me around my waist and pulls me to my feet, but my knees give out, and they're forced to drag me over to the cages.  I feel as if I've been hit by a train.

 _Did you get out? Are you safe?_ I think as loudly as I can, hoping Angel can still read my mind. Please be okay please be okay.

_Yeah, Max, but we have to save you._

_Angel just get out of here. I'll be fine._ I'm lying to both Angel and myself at this point.   _Keep flying west.  Fang was headed to California.  Find him, he'll take care of you. Please stay safe._  I don't know if Angel can even still hear my thoughts.

_I can still hear you Max.  I'm so sorry.  I love you Max._

_I love you too, Angel. Goodbye._

I squeeze my eyes shut and try not to cry. That may be the last time I ever say goodbye.  It feels like I've been dragged underwater.  All of my senses are numb, and nothing I hear resounds deep enough to reach my brain.  I hear talking, and clanging of metal, and feel my body being dragged, but I feel distant, disconnected from myself.

They shove me in a cage, and my broken wing hits the side of the door. Pain pierces my brain, shooting through my inundated subconscious, as the memories flood in like a tsunami. I start feeling nauseous as I remember all the horrors that went on in similar, smaller cages.  

I twist around back towards them, and the last thing I see before blacking out from the pain and the heartbreak is the man whose neck I broke slamming the door and clicking the lock.


	2. Relax, Relapse

I wake up in darkness, with a sharp pain in my wing and a throbbing in my head as the events of the previous 24 hours float to the front of my consciousness. Only Fang and Iggy would understand how familiar this situation feels. Angel was only a baby when Jeb pulled us out of the School, and Gazzy was still very young. Nudge remembers more than either of them, but little does she know the full extent of the torturous tests Ig, Fang, and I underwent daily. 

I’ve been hunted all my life by monsters worse than these super-freaks who have captured me, and survived much, much more than a few broken bones.  I'm stronger both mentally and physically than any regular human being, and my strength has been literally programmed into me by demented, over-achieving geeks, but it's just another side effect of the wings.  Unfortunately for me, mental stability is not something than can be engineered in a lab.  I have no flock to be strong for and no one left to be strong for me, and my emotional stability shatters like a mirror on concrete. 

I feel my head for damage, and my fingertips brush broken glass and sticky blood.  I accidentally touch the wound, and it's all I can do to keep from whimpering. 

Faint moonlight comes from a window behind me, reminding me of a similar glow, the only source of light at night back at the School: a single exit sign above the door. One faint green light in a whole storage room full of crates, and full of...things. The crates were usually occupied, but that didn't mean anyone else lasted long.  My flock was the only permanent residents in a sadistic petting zoo of freaks.  Most of the other experiments couldn't speak, few lasted more than a couple weeks, and none deserved what happened to them.

I remember waking up one night to hear Iggy sobbing in agony, probably tested on while we slept. Telling him it would all be okay, but to hear his gasp out, "No it won't. Max, I can't see!"  My own eyes adjusting in the light to see his eyes and face bandaged, and the horror of what they did to him overcome by the sick feeling of relief that it was him, not me, who they decided to test on.

Stop it, Max. Stop thinking about School. I realize my hands are shaking and I'm still in this darn cage. Trapped.

I remember a smaller cage, and seeing them pull Nudge out of it for the first time in weeks. She was only four, and her eyes were pleading with me to help her, somehow. I remember rattling the cage door, not knowing what they would do to her, unable to help her, as she was led like a lamb to the slaughter.

Back in the barn, I suck in the damp, musty air, automatically breathing in, out, in, out. Just like Jeb told us to.  In case of anything, just keep calm. Breathe in, breathe out.  Even now, I rely on his training to keep me alive.

I remember how he would always hang back a little during experiments, less willing to dig into my flesh and test the extent of my abilities. I remember when he helped us escape, telling us to stay quiet, because everything would be okay. And I remember trusting him.

The worst part is, I remember believing that I would be okay, that he could keep us safe, but I’ll never forget the empty feeling after and he disappeared--no, abandoned us-- after all he did for us.

I was the one closest to him, and over time, he started to feel like a father. One day, he went into town for groceries. The drive was usually about one hour each direction.  After four hours, I started worrying. By dinner, I was very anxious. That night, I tucked the kids into bed by myself, paranoid and hoping only to see him return safely. But deep down, I think I already knew he was gone.

After a week, we could only assume he had died or the Whitecoats had gotten to him.  I remember that eventually, I was able to come to terms with his death.  

But finding out he was alive hurt more than losing him. Knowing that he had never really meant to keep us safe, that he never actually cared if we were okay, it just  **hurt** . And then he had the audacity to ask me to trust him, after everything he had done to me--to them. The thought of him telling me that I had to save the world, that everything depended on me, while treating me as fatherly as he always had, even though we both knew it had all been a lie, it just kills me.

He never loved me.

He never loved any of us.

I remember having to constantly remind myself that I couldn't trust him. That he was one of them, no matter how badly I wanted him to be different.

I find that I'm curled up in the center of my cage, my wings wrapped around me, instinctively trying to protect myself from the rest of the world. Touching my cheeks, I discover they're wet, and I wipe the tears away with the edge of my sleeve.

Pull yourself together, Max.  

I fall asleep with an ache in my chest, as if the world is pressing in on me, and I know the pain isn't just from the bruises.


	3. Liberty, stupidity, and reality

I must have slept all night because I wake up in early hours of the morning. My eyelids flutter open and I survey the room. Some freaks are drinking, some are shooting darts, some are playing a loud game of cards, and some are doing all three. Tani is sitting on a bale of hay, watching me. She notices that I'm awake and walks up to my cell with the gait of a runway queen.

"Hello, sweetheart. I just want to talk." She makes a hand gesture in the direction of the card game, and the freaks who’s neck I  _ swear _ I broke last night gets up and comes over.  He pulls out a ring of keys hanging on a chain around his neck, selects one, unlocks the cage door, and swings it open.

"Get up."

I cross my arms. "No."

He grabs my arm and wrenches my body upwards, dragging me out of the cage. I stand, my mind still foggy, as Tani smiles at me.  

"You've got spirit.  I admire that."

"And you've got a frat house full of blindly devoted slaves to do your bidding. Come to think of it, I actually don't admire that at all."

She continues as if I hadn't spoken. "You're unique. One-of-a-kind you could say." As she speaks, she walks slowly in a circle around me, surveying me. "But that doesn't make you invincible. In fact, you're quite susceptible to pain." 

"It's a character flaw that I'm working on overcoming in my personal journey to find inner peace," I retort sarcastically. "What do you want?"

Again, she ignores me. "Given your breakdown only a couple hours ago, I would say it's more than a personal flaw. In fact, I would call it a hamartia."  

She's made a full circle now and we're facing each other. "A hamartia is a fatal flaw that leads to the downfall of a character," she offers condescendingly.

I roll my eyes.  

"What I want, Max, is to get to know you better. " she stresses my name as if it is a tool to use against me. "Not that I want to form any sort of friendship or bond, I want to get to know your body better."

"That's kinky." She steps forward and looks me in the eyes.

"This isn't really a laughing matter.  What I mean, Max, is that I'm going to get to know you, inside and out. I'm going to rip you apart and study every individual cell in your body, and I'm going to keep you alive for the whole thing.  You know," she sneers, "as part of your personal journey to find inner peace."

"Why?"

"Because I can," she grins sadistically at me. 

I launch a kick at her stomach, doubting its strength because of my increasing weakness from hunger, but my foot connects with her stomach and I instantly regret my decision. It feels like I've kicked concrete.

"Ouch," she says without emotion.

I blink and she's in front of me. I turn to run, anywhere. She positions her foot in front of mine and shoves me hard on the back, tripping me.

I fall to the ground and it's all I can do to cover my already bleeding head and curl up as she kicks me again and again. I find myself choking and spit blood onto the floor. The room is spinning. Not a good sign, considering I'm not on a carnival ride.

She kicks me again in the head, reopening the wound from last night, and stars dance around in front of me. Tani aims again for my stomach, but this time I'm faster than her. I grab her foot and and pull. I hear the thud of her hitting the floor. I grin. What's the saying? The bigger they come, the harder they fall?

But my eyes have lost the ability to focus, so I only  _ think _ I see a steel-toed boot coming straight for my face.

................................

Cold. Metal. Pain. My senses come back to life.

I now have steel cuffs keeping one wrist chained to the bars of the cage. I twist around to look for any Freaks, and almost pass out from the pain of the movement. Broken rib, possibly more than one. I can't help thinking that locked, cuffed, and injured in this cage, I would die if there were to be a fire. But then the odds weren't looking too good in my favor anyways.

I gingerly reach for my nose, and gasp from the pain. It's broken too. 

I start wishing I was more like Nudge and did my hair, because after ages of trying to pick the cuffs with a piece of hay, I'm really wishing for a bobby pin. Not only that, but I now have one of the worst headaches since New York.

Hello? Voice? I could use some company.

No answer. Zero, zip, nada.

Fine. Be a assbutt.

I jiggle the cuffs again and try to settle into a slightly more comfortable position.


	4. Let's Kill Tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Sam make their appearance, whether for good or bad, Max has yet to figure out.

Sometime later, I wake up to dusty sunlight streaming through a broken window. Glancing over to my left, I realize that I am no longer alone, as two of the other cages are now occupied. One woman catches my eye, and I look away, realizing I'm probably no less of a freak to them than Superwoman and her gang of super friends, who are currently sleeping peacefully.

Despite their apparent unconsciousness, they have about them a look of calm awareness, as if they can still sense everything going on. It's eerie. Maybe it's something similar to our heightened vision, smell, and hearing.

Speaking of which, what woke me up? A small creak of a door and some hushed whispers announce two guys who have just stepped into view. If I was a normal teenage girl, not currently being held captive in a huge metal cage by the not-Whitecoats from hell, it is likely I would have noticed how incredibly hot they were.

But it's me, hunted genetic freak with wings and her own friendly Voice in her head, and the only thing I notice is that they look strong and are armed, which could either be good or extremely bad for me. It wouldn't be the first time an outside party has tried to capture us. Slowly, I attempt to hide my wings, flinching as the broken one brushes the ground, but I force myself to retract both as far as possible anyways.

The shorter of the men, who has a sharp jawline, freckles, and shorter hair to accompany his height, gestures to the freaks in the hammocks. For the sake of retelling this, we will refer to him as Freckles. The other one, really tall, and I mean  _ really  _ tall, with hair down to his shoulders, nods and moves around to come at them from the other side. Let's call him Shaggy. They cooperate so smoothly that they've got to be partners of some sort, if not related.

Suddenly, a shadow moves in the rafters and half a dozen more Supers drop to the ground, surrounding the two intruders and waking the rest of their friends.

Shaggy unsheathes a machete and starts swinging, while Freckles starts firing with a crossbow.

Now, I've seen a lifetime's worth of  blood and gore, but what these guys were doing to the superfreaks was just plain gruesome.

The arrows must be coated with something toxic, because the Freaks that Freckles shoots drop either unconscious or dead to the ground. After running out of arrows, he, too, pulls out a machete, and manages to behead the two of the freaks who are advancing at him from the front.

He has a pretty good fighting style, I must say, and decapitates one more before a Freak sweeps a leg out under him, effectively tripping and knocking him flat on the ground. He lands in a spreading pool of blood from one of the less fortunate Freaks, and I unconsciously grimace in sympathy.

The Freak who knocked him down stomps on his wrist until, cringing, Freckles unclenches his fist and releases his hold of the blade, and a different Freak kicks it across the barn. I watch as it disappears into a pile of hay, making a note of it in case I need it later.

Meanwhile, the tall one has a body count (or should I say head count) of four before they manage to twist his arms behind his back, and he cries out as his shoulder dislocates.

"Sammy!" Freckles calls out. Several freaks grabs his shoulders in turn and haul him up.  As he scrambles to his feet, he turns to Tani, who is now standing facing him, and promises, "I will kill every last one of you filthy bloodsuckers."

Tani has her back to me, but I can feel her angry glare and haughty shit-eating satisfaction of having bested these clearly skilled men.

"You know? I don't think you will. You're not killing anybody else." Her voice hardens to flint. "Ever.”

She flicks her wrist at a couple only slightly bruised and bumped Freaks and dramatically turns her back on him and walks back towards my side of the barn.

“Lock them up with the angel girl. I'll deal with them later."


	5. Ready To Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years earlier...

**APRIL 2013**

Rob was new to the force, and already his life was getting more exciting, even though he started with desk work. After the bird-kid stunt last week, the NYPD had been getting calls from all over the state with claimed sightings.

He glanced at the clock. Five PM. He would be off in half an hour. Looking back towards the door, he saw two official-looking men heading straight across the lobby towards him.  _ Crap _ , he thought.

"Hello, I'm Agent Tyler, and this is my partner, Agent Harkness," the tall one introduced them, as they presented him their badges.

He wondered what the FBI wanted with him. As far as he knew, he hadn't done anything illegal since that one time in high school. And why did those names sound familiar?

"Can I help you with anything?" He asked, hoping he didn't sound nearly as nervous as he felt.

"We'd like to see all your files on the bird-kid incident," the short one demanded.

Rob blinked in surprise. "Um, sorry, what?”

“Your files. On the incident that occurred last week. We’d like to see them.” Agent Harkness repeated.

“I thought someone was already checking in on that? You guys know that was just some sort of publicity stunt, right?"

The short one opened his mouth to reply, but Agent Tyler cut him off. "We've been assigned to this case, so just show us the file, please."

"Uh, yeah, sure." He conceded. He was tired and didn't want to get in trouble. "I'll be right back."

As he walked away to find the file, he heard Harkness scoff, "Publicity stunt."

Returning with the relatively small file, he showed them the witnesses pictures and written accounts. Then he showed them the surveillance footage from before, during, and after the stunt.

"No glare." He heard Harkness mutter under his breath as he showed them a still showing the kids' faces. “Not a shapeshifter.”

"Well, as far as our experts can tell, the photos and footage are authentic, but we obviously can't find any explanation for it. I mean, there's no way it could be real, but at the same time, it seems to be legit."

"Right," Tyler responded, glancing back up and then looking through a couple more photos.

Agent Harkness looked up from a picture a witness had taken on their phone of the children breaking through the glass on the ceiling. "How thick was that glass?"

"Almost 2 inches." He remembered that fact, because it struck him as strange how easily the stuntmen had broken through it. Maybe it had been purposefully weakened or cracked.

"And did any of the witnesses report any strange smells before, during, or after the incident? For example, did they report the scent of rotten eggs, sulfur..."

"Um, not that I know of, and I've been studying these reports for the last week." The FBI sure is thorough, he thought to himself. "I do have something that might interest you though. We sent some feathers found at the scene to the lab to be analyzed."

"And?" Agent Tyler came around the desk to look at his computer screen.

Rob opened up three separate files. There were pictures of black, brown, and tawny feathers. "These appear to be from the children. The black one is from a bird called a Quiscalus major, found mostly in the Southeastern United States." The taller agent nodded, and he continued. "The darker brown one is from a Falco peregrinus, or a peregrine falcon. And the last is a Toxostoma bendirei, a bird found mostly in," he squinted at the fine print," Southern Nevada and California, Arizona, and Colorado. Lord knows where they got the feathers."

The agent shook his head in bewilderment. "Could you print those all out for me?"

"Of course." Rob clicked the print button and walked over to the printer. He wondered if the FBI could figure anything out. As the pages were printing, he heard one of the agents mutter, "What the hell, man?"

The records printed, he walked back over to the agents, the shorter of whom was looking increasingly more frustrated. He handed the tall one the photos of the feathers. "I also printed out the pages with the identification of the feathers themselves and of any substances found on them."

"Thank you so much," Agent Tyler said.

Agent Harkness picked up several of the photos he had been looking at and gestured to them with his hand. "Well, um, thanks for your time. We're going to need to examine these more closely, but we'll be in touch."

They turned around and began walking away.

"Hold on, you're not supposed to take all of those!" Rob called after them.

"Thanks for your help," the short one called back, and they left the way they had come.

Rob sighed. He should probably report them, but that would mean paperwork and staying late , and it had been a long day.

He cleaned up the file and replaced it. He hoped no one would notice the missing photos, but he doubted anyone would, and anyways, they could be replaced if necessary.

Looking back up at the clock, he sighed. Still fifteen minutes to go. Reluctantly, he returned to his desk, and continued the work report he had been typing up before those two mysterious men had arrived.

.........................................

"Dean, do you know how strong you would have to be to break through that glass?'

The two men were sitting in a 1967 Chevy Impala that was parked across from a Burger King.

"I don't know. How strong?"

"Very strong. Do you have any idea what we could be dealing with?" The taller of the two let his exasperation be heard in his voice. "And you're sitting here eating a cheeseburger!"

"Yeah, and it tastes a lot better than an empty case too."

"Dean-"

"Listen, Sam. We've got no leads, no idea what this thing is, or what happened to it. It's a dead case."

"Did you look through the pages he printed out?"

"Yeah, too sciencey. It made me hungry."

"You know what the DNA analysis showed? Only most of the DNA from those feathers is from those three different birds. The other 2%? It's human."

The short one set his burger down on his lap. "Okay, so there was a freak show in town. It doesn't mean we have any leads."

The tall one sighed.

"Besides, Sammy, we have a lot more pressing matters on our hands."

"Fine." He turned to stare out the window. "Let's just go then."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, there is a subtle Doctor Who reference.


	6. Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off

**Now**

The next thing I know, they're being forced into my cage, which has about as much floor space as my bed back in Colorado, but is tall enough to stand in.

The tall one trips on his way in, and falls forward, throwing his arms out in front of him to break his fall, but then collapses as he puts weight on his shoulder. A Freak kicks him in all the way, and pushes Freckles in after.

"Sammy," Freckles says under his breath, glancing at me and then back at Shaggy, "you okay?"

"Yeah," he rolls over onto his back and pushes himself into a sitting position with his other arm.

"From the way they twisted it, I'm pretty sure you dislocated it." I speak up.

They both turn to stare at me.

"What? That's what it looked like," I shrug nonchalantly.

"Okay, let's do this," Freckles turns back and places his hands around "Sammy's" shoulder.

I'm pretty sure that isn't how you relocate a shoulder. He cringes as Freckles tries to jerk his shoulder into place.

"That's not going to work unless you have an extremely high pain tolerance." I speak up because I can see Sammy's in pain and it's only going to get worse if Freckles continues with the method he's attempting.

"He can do it without help too. You have to bend your elbow to like, a 90 degree angle in front of you."

With a glance at Freckles, Sammy follows my directions.

"Okay now you need to rotate it straight out to the side, but keep the 90 degree angle. Rotate it so you move your arm from the shoulder joint."

He cringes, but once again follows what I say. "Okay, now raise your arm slowly to above your head."

As I try to demonstrate, I move my cuffed hand, rattling the metal.

Freckles's stare glances away from his partner and we briefly make eye contact before his gaze moves from my face to my cuffed hand to my arm to the rest of my thin body, looking me over. His gaze flickers over something to the side of my hip, but “Sammy's” injury takes back his attention.

He frowns a little. "Well? Did it work?" Freckles asks.

"Yeah. Thanks," Sammy looks at me, "I'm Sam Winchester, and this is my brother Dean." He's gesturing to himself and his brother, and it seems like he's said this thousands of times. His condescending voice is really pissing me off but his face is just so damn adorable.

I simply stare back at him and raise my eyebrows.

"You know, usually when people tell you their names, you're supposed to return the favor." Shorty cuts in.

I shift my glare to Dean. "My name's Max. I don't need your help to get out of here."

"Right."

"What do you think the cuffs are for, smartass?"

"Who knows? Some people have some strange misconceptions about bondage."

If Fang were here he would probably make some irritating comment to Dean about how he had actually managed to shut me up, but Sam says it for me.

"DUDE!" He makes this face as if he's trying to communicate to Dean how inappropriate that was through facial expressions. It's actually pretty hilarious.

Dean looks at Sam and shrugs.

Thinking about Fang has inspired some anger in me. “Why don’t we cut the crap and get to the real reason why you’re here.”

They exchange a look. Sam speaks up. "I know you'll find it hard to believe, but me and my brother, we hunt monsters."

I can tell they're looking for some sort of reaction, but I refuse to give them that satisfaction.

My face stays calm, and I nod as if waiting for the next shoe to drop.

Meanwhile, my brain is running on overdrive.

So they aren’t here for me, or they just aren’t admitting it yet? What do they mean by monsters? Erasers? Other mutants?

Would that mean they were hunting the Freaks?

The Freaks don’t look like generic male models, like Erasers do, but they do have exceptional strength. They didn’t know who or what I was, though, so I don’t think they’re Erasers. If they were, I doubt I’d still be in a barn in the middle of Kansas and not a dog crate in Nevada.  

Now that I think of it, it does seem weird how that many of them could escape the School, Institute, or whatever other godforsaken hidden labs, and stay out.

Most importantly, when the Winchesters say they hunt monsters, does that include me? 

Hey Voice? Care to comment?

It stays characteristically silent.

Dean's voice cuts through my thoughts. "The people who kidnapped you, or however you ended up in here, they're vampires. Most ghosts are real, so are werewolves, and demons. Bloody Mary? We killed her."

"Vampires?” I scoff, “The Freaks in there aren't exactly Dracula. "

"Well, most myths about vampires aren't true,” Sam explains in a totally rational voice, “They bleed, just like everyone else, and have a reflection. Sunlight won't kill them either. They all used to be human, and can turn you too, if they get their blood into you.”

“And the only way to kill 'em," Dean grins viciously," is by beheading. "

Honestly, I’m worried for Sam and Dean’s sanity, but then, most people would be worried about mine. I’ve seen too much to rule it all out.

"That's nice and all.” I force a smile, “But why does that matter to you?"

"There have been a bunch of disappearances here in the last month. Four teenagers vanished while hiking. They still haven't found two of the bodies. I can see that one of them is sitting here talking to us.”

They still think I'm normal. Sam looks at me and frowns.

Dean continues, “The bodies they did find were almost unrecognizable. Also, a jogger disappeared during an early morning run, and a woman’s mauled body was found outside a bar last night."

I look back up at them. "But why do you care?"

They glance at each other. "It's just, sort of our job," Sam finally says.

"Saving people, hunting things. The family business...why are we even telling you any of this?" Dean looks suspiciously at me.

I shrug and return to staring aimlessly at the floor, while I process all this new information. Great. More crap to add to my To Do list:

  1. Get the hell out of here
  2. Find the flock
  3. Kick Fang’s royal ass
  4. Google Sam and Dean Winchester



~

We’ve sat in silence for ages when I finally realize I won't be learning anything from the Winchesters while I’m awake. I lean my head against the cage and close my eyes and focus on breathing, slowing it to a steady rhythm.

My stomach still feels as if it’s turning inside out. My mouth is dry, and even desert rat sounds slightly edible. I'd barely eaten before they captured me, and I haven't touched a speck of food or water since. I ignore my hunger and thirst and pretend to fall asleep.

And now I wait. As I guessed, Sam and Dean don’t trust me enough and don’t begin to talk until several minutes after my steady breathing has convinced them I won’t be eavesdropping.

“Dean, how are we going to get out of here?”

“I don’t know.” I feel him stand up and rattle the cage door slightly. He won’t be able to break it down. I already tried.

“We’re in pretty deep, dude.”

“We’ve been through worse.” The cage rattles again. “They’ll come for us. They always do, and the second the door opens-”

“We don’t know that, Dean! They could just let us rot in here for all we know!”

“Okay, we have to break out. And before nightfall.”

These guys need to learn someone is always watching, listening, or both.

“Think Max has a hairpin on her?”

If I did I wouldn't be sitting here right now. Iggy is the master at lock picking, but I can still pick any lock if I have the tools and the need.

“About Max,” Sam pauses. Crap. “When we found the article on the missing girls in the papers, there were pictures of them.”

“Okay. And?”

“Max wasn't one of them.”

“So? She was just some other teen who...” his voice trails off. I’m pretty sure he’s staring at me. Someone moves closer. Time to wake up. I blink a couple times and find Dean staring at my jacket. I cough.

He startles backwards and Sam looks the other way. I look at them and raise my eyebrows.

Pulling up my jacket sleeve and looking at my watch, I learn it’s 4:12 pm. The screen got cracked somehow. Probably when I tried to escape.

Glancing across the room, I see my backpack hanging where I left it all those ages ago when we arrived. The credit card I found in New York and all the information from the Institute is in there. Even though it seemed like a dead end, Fang would kill me if I lost those.

"Hold on," Dean stands up and walks over to the cage door.

Glancing around for any of the Freaks, who are supposedly vampires, he pulls a small knife out of the heel of his shoe. Poking through the bars of the cage, he catches the underside of the head of this pin in the hinge of the door and lifts it out half an inch with his knife before reaching through with his fingers and pulling it out all the way. It clangs against the cage as he pulls it through into the cage and he freezes.  There's no visible movement from the hammocks, and so he continues onto the next pin. 

I realize what he's doing, but we're still armed only with his knife, and I'm still chained to the cage.

I wave to gets Sam's attention and he comes over with a knife of his own. He kneels down next to me and tries to get the blade inside the lock of the handcuffs, but it's too wide. I shake my head. It won't work.

My eyes travel to his face, and he's staring at me strangely. He reaches for my hair and pulls out a bobby pin that most certainly was not in my hair when I got here.

Dean's almost got the last pin out as Sam unbends the hairpin and starts to works on the cuffs. I let him, because the less he knows about me and what I can do, the better. Dean pulls the last pin out, and the hinges are free.

"As soon as the door opens we run," he whispers in my ear. I nod. I carefully extract my bruised wrist from the despised cuffs. They slip out of my hands and swing down, clanging loudly against the bars of the cage. Fuck. Someone stirs over at the hammocks. Dean shoots me a face, backs up and then kicks the door open with a crash.

I sprint out of the cage behind Sam, but instead of following them out the back door, I run over to my backpack. I have just grabbed the strap when someone drops down behind me.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?"

  
  



	7. Far Too Young to Die

I know that voice and I know what will follow. I don't even turn to look at her. I just run.

Sam and Dean are almost out the door when they see I'm not there. Dean continues out the door and Sam holds out his hand to me. I reach out to grab it when someone wraps their arms around my torso.

I feel my fingers brush Sam’s just as whoever has grabbed me quite literally throws me across the room.

There's a loud crack when I slam backwards against a wooden support beam, my wings still crunched up against my back, before I crumple to the floor. Stars dance all across my vision and I try not to focus on them as Tani's favorite Freak (I'm still not willing to call them vampires) with the not-broken neck strides with incredible speed from across the room where he threw me to right next to me and pulls me up to a slumped standing position that consists of me falling onto his shoulder despite my best intentions otherwise.

Sam hurries back inside but runs into a Freak. Tani steps over-dramatically out of a shadow and faces me.

"Hold her still," she commands him.

"That's harder than it looks," I retort.

"Not for long."

I grunt as he jerks my arms behind my back and grips my wrists with one hand, and my shoulder with the other.

"See, we’re pretty certain you can't hurt us. At least not really."

"I'm also pretty certain Hitler wouldn't hurt a fly, but I might be wrong." Freaky jabs me hard in the ribs. I can feel my backpack is still there, but only one strap is over my shoulder.

I notice Dean return inside, carrying two machetes.

"Sweetheart, this will be easier on all of us if you just cooperate."

I turn my attention back to Tani, but out of the corner of my eye I see Dean toss Sam a machete and they attack the Freak that ran into Sam.

"Cooperate with what? Your master plan to take over the world? To dissect me?"

She sighs wistfully. "I have much bigger plans for you than taking over the world."

I shake my head. "Others have tried. I doubt you'll be very successful."

I can feel the stares of a few Freaks who are watching me, ready to step forward if I try anything. The rest are attacking Sam and Dean.

Tani holds her right forearm up to her mouth as literal fangs descend from her gums and she bites open her arm, blood dripping onto the dirt floor. It's one of the strangest and most revolting things I have ever seen, and that's saying something.

"No...Max!" I look up from staring transfixed and disgusted at Tani and see Sam trying to fight his way through to me. What's he so worried about? Besides the obvious 'held captive by literal monsters'.

Tani glances back at Sam and in a twitch of a muscle is inches away from my face. "Well. Max," she sneers on my name, as if it's a joke to be mocked, " a pathetic, defenseless angel.  God, you're just begging to be messed with. " Her breath smells like rust and blood.

"You're wrong there. Not an angel," I smile unconvincingly.

She nods at the Freak holding me. "Dave."

It’s a command, but I don’t know what for until he grabs just under the collar of my shirt and pulls, choking me and then ripping down the fabric in my jacket and shirt and leaving them hanging only on the front. Cold air sweeps over my feathers and back and I shiver. I glare at Tani. I feel so goddamn exposed and violated.

"Yes, you are," she says through gritted teeth, "and we're going to be doing a little experimenting today."

Fuck. "You don't look the part. Did you forget your lab coat at home this morning?"

She rolls her eyes and brings her hand up to caress my face. The Freak holding me, (I guess he has a name: Dave) still has my wrists secure in his grip, so I can't move away from her touch.

"You...you try to hide behind this snarky... facade, but underneath, you're, well you're absolutely terrified. Did you know that?"

She grins, taking her time with her words, tracing her fingers around my jaw and down my neck; I grimace in disgust, feeling the goosebumps rising up the lengths of my arms.

She continues, "We have all sorts come through here. And you," she leans close to my ear, and slowly, gently, moves my hair out of the way. She cups her hand as if she's going to tell me a secret, and whispers "well, you're special."

She slowly straightens up, deliberately, I'm sure, leaving my hair tucked behind my ear, leaving my neck completely unprotected. She takes a step back, smiling serenely and smugly.

I stare at her. God, what have they done to her? Apparently genetic freaks can't just be freaks, well, genetically. They have to be total creeps too. Take Dylan, for example.

I look past her and see a bloodbath. Sam is still going strong and is halfway across the barn towards me. Only a few Freaks, including Tani, stand between me and him.

She follows my eyes and then, glaring back at me, grabs my jaw with her hand. I make a noise of surprise, but she shoves her bleeding wrists against my mouth, hot and sticky with blood. I try to shut my lips but I can taste her blood mixing with my saliva on my tongue, and I stagger backwards as she keeps her arm pressed to my face, struggling to escape the sweet, salty taste of her blood accumulating in the back of my throat. What the hell is she doing?

"They all used to be human, and can turn you too, if they get their blood into you.”

In trying to pull away from her, I only push myself into Dave's solid torso. He's still holding my arms and I can't move. I can't think. I can't breathe. What's going on? She finally stops pressing her arm onto my mouth, and I immediately start gagging, coughing up blood and drooling it onto my attacker's sleeves and my own shirt, but he still doesn't loosen his grip.

Did she...did she just try to...to turn me? Into what?

What the hell did she just do? That didn't happen.

I shut my eyes and shake my head in an attempt to clear my mind. That didn't happen. This is just a dream, Max. A very fucked up, incredibly realistic dream or simulation or something. You'll wake up velcroed to a table and Jeb will be standing over you with a clipboard, asking you about your feelings, telling you how it's all part of the plan, 'training' and teaching you some shit about saving the world. Max, pull yourself the fuck together. I inhale slowly. You're just imagining things Max.

_ It's not a dream, Max. _

"Holy fucking SHIT," my eyes fly open and I jump, startled, and shriek, pushing with all my strength against the arms of muscleman still holding me securely pressed against his body. "SHUT THE HELL UP, VOICE! JUST LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE FOR ONCE."

The silence is eerie. My ears are ringing. Everything is blurry. The ground is moving. I give up with a sob, collapsing against his grip. I'm a dead weight.

I feel hands on me, grabbing my shoulders, attempting to stand me back up. I fall backwards against the Freak, who gives way slightly to my unexpected limpness, my head falling onto my shoulders, my eyes shut but already hot and moist with tears. I blink slowly and my vision clears slightly.

Dean and Sam most likely were taken advantage of while they stopped fighting to look at me, for both once again strain against several Freaks. Everyone is either staring at me, eyeing Tani for some cue of what to do.

I look around at each of them. Tani conveys a surprised and wary scrutiny, Dean is visibly frustrated with being disarmed, but looks slightly worried, but Sam, he bears a look of complete and total pity.

_ Max, you're on your own now. I can't go where you're going. Look out for yourself. _

I close my eyes once again, and inhale slowly and deeply, preparing myself for what I'm about to do. Then I stomp my heel as hard as I can into Dave's foot, turn around and knee him in the crotch. He doubles over and I slip out of his grip. Tani moves like lightning and grabs my wrist but I twist her arm above her head, grab her arm, and bend. It snaps.

She gasps out loud and I let go. Too many people. All running at me. Boy, this is getting old.

I duck under a Freak's punch and sprint for the door. When I reach it, I turn to take one last look to enjoy Tani's pain, but she's already vanished.

I turn and run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you didn't catch it: when Max says, "Take Dylan, for example," that's a reference to the character/love interest who was introduced in the later part of the Maximum Ride series. Needless to say, he was crazy and irritating as hell.


	8. I'm Not Okay (I Promise)

The side door slams shut behind me with a bang. Surprisingly, the hinges still work.

The dirt is hard and cracked and the reflecting heat and sun temporarily impairs my vision. I'm sprinting blindly across the baked soil. I know I just need to get to the fields. I can count on getting lost in there.

I'm several feet away from the various grasses (or weeds) of a golden color when the door slams open. I whip my head around and see Sam, closely followed by Dean, shading their eyes against the sun. Dean spots me and starts running. I hit the hay. Haha, no, literally.

The plants sting my skin as I plow through them. In a sea of grass the same height as me, it should be easy to get lost, but the Winchesters do have guns, so I duck my head and keep running, zig-zagging and hopefully creating a hard track to follow. If I'm lucky, I disappeared before they spotted my wings, or if not then my backpack hid them, but I can't be too sure.

I can hear them shouting and crashing through the field behind me. Good luck in catching up to me. I'm hyped up on enhanced DNA and adrenaline.

Suddenly, I crash across a ditch and the field ends. Luckily for me across the gravel road is another field.

I keep running.

~

I lose count of how many fields I've plowed through. After about half an hour, I lean over, gasping for breath. Weirdly, the longer I run the brighter the sun gets. 

Looking around, I see what might be a roof or buildings farther down the road. Keeping to the grasses, I slowly start walk down the road. The wind sounds vaguely thunderous. Is it tornado season?

Not much of anything in my life has been making sense lately.

The buildings turn out to be a small bar, gas station, and diner connected to a motel. All are covered in a decade's worth of dust.

I walk into a small, cluttered office at the motel with a desk and a woman sitting behind it, messing around on her computer. A bell on the door rings when I come in and the noise makes me flinch. She looks up, and makes no effort to hide her disgust and distrust. I probably look as bad as I feel--like hell.

"Can I help you?"  

"Yeah, I, uh," I swing my backpack around to the front and fish the credit card from New York out of the small pocket. I slide it across the desk. "Room for one night."

She looks at me skeptically, but fiddles around on her computer. "Name?"

"Uhh," I'm about to say Ella Martinez but I realize the card's in my name anyways so it really wouldn't help. "Max Ride." She swipes the card, and then hands me a room key with the number 27 written on it in Sharpie and my card back.

"You'll be in room 27 on the second floor."

I take the key. An overwhelming scent hits my nose. I thinks it's coming from her. Smells like BO hastily covered up with cheap flowery perfume.

I squint at her then clasp my hands to my ears as she goes back to her computer. Each click of the keyboard sounds like a firework. God, the headache's back too. I slump against the wall, knocking over a tray of mints with my elbow.

"Miss, are you okay?"

There's no need to shout, I want to snap but I'm pretty sure there's something wrong with me, not her.

"No, sorry," I mumble and kneel down as I attempt to clean up the mess I've just made. My backpack swings down and hits my arm, causing me to drop the room key and card.

I can feel her stare.  "Do you need me to call someone?"

"No, thanks. I'm sorry for the mess." 

I pick up the rest of the wrapped mints off the dirty carpet. Do they ever vacuum? All this dust is probably bad for their heal-"aCHOO!"

"Bless you."

God, I'm surprised I'm not deaf from that noise.

I carefully set the bowl back on the desk and then stumble out the door, the fucking bell jingling as it shuts behind me.

I tiptoe up the stairs and find the room numbered 27. The numbers swim and blur before my eyes and I find myself getting dizzy. I grab at the door jamb with my left hand to try to steady myself as I fumble with the key at the keyhole, squinting because of the brightness outside. I hear each individual click of the lock as it opens and I finally turn the knob and push open the door.

The unbelievably loud roar of an engine of a car pulling into the parking lot fills my consciousness and almost deafens me. I trip inside and slam the door behind me. I finally collapse onto a bed, with both empty hands and an empty mind.


	9. Teenagers

"Shit." Dean crashed through onto the gravel road on the other side of the field and looked all around. He couldn't see Max anywhere.

Sam stumbled out several hundred feet down the road.

"See her anywhere?!" Dean called through the heat. He thought he saw Sam shake his head. Crap. The vampires. He turned and sprinted back towards the barn. He heard Sam following. "Dean?! Where are you going?"

Sam finally caught up to Dean to find him standing in the center of the empty barn.

"GoddAMMIT!"

Sam kneeled over, breathing heavily. "What?"

"She got away!"

"Which one?"

"The vampire! You think I care about Max? The bitch must have run away when we chased after that damn girl. " Dean threw his machete at the ground and it imbedded itself in the red earth.

"Dean?"

"What?" Dean yelled irritably.

"We're going to have to care about that girl. "

"What? Why?" He looked up at his younger brother who was staring at him with an exasperated expression.

"No. She didn't--she isn't--"

Sam nodded. "The vamp bled in her mouth, Dean."

"SHIT!" Dean gouged a hole in the floor as he kicked up a cloud of dust that settled on the pools of blood surrounding the beheaded vampires.

"How are we going to find her, Dean?"

"I don't know; she could have run anywhere." He punched the nearest wooden beam, " I should have fucking followed her. "

"Town is 12 miles away, Dean. Chances are, she hasn't made it that far."

"Oh but trust me, she'll get hungry. And then distance won't matter. All that'll matter is the blood. And sooner or later she'll turn up, it's only a matter of time."

"Look, we better head back to the motel. We'll have to wait until she attacks someone. "

"So we're just going to wait for somebody else to die? Is that it?"

"Dean! We don't have a choice!"

"I know," he grumbled. He marched over to the cages. A young woman with curly brown hair sat wide-eyed in the corner of one, and a couple sat huddled against the wall in the cage next to her. Dean picked the locks to both and helped the people out. "Let's go. Come on, you're going to be okay."

"Thank you," one of them mumbled and the others nodded.

"Yeah, don't mention it."

~

Dean stayed silent as they drove back to the motel, after dropping the poor victims off at the shabby police station. It was a sleazy, dusty motel, but at least there was free wifi. As they pulled into the pothole filled parking lot, Dean's gaze fixed on a girl with tangled, dirty blonde hair stumbling into a room and slamming the door.

"Is that who I think it is?"

"What?" Sam looked up from examining a newspaper.

"Let's go!" Dean commanded as he accelerated into a parking space, slammed on the brake, turned off the engine and jumped out of the car.

Just then, the clerk walked out of the front office carrying a backpack and headed up the stairs.

"Excuse me!" Sam called out and caught up to the woman who had stopped walking and turned around to look at them.

"Yes?"

"Whose bag is that?"

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at them. "Why do you want to know?"

"Because it looks, um, like our-" Sam fumbled.

"-like our cousin's." Dean cut in.

"Yeah! Our, um, cousin, she was supposed to have arrived some time today."

The woman raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Yeah, her name's Max. She has," Dean leaned close to the woman and whispered, "mental issues, you know, like memory problems." He smiled unconvincingly.

"We'll take care of it for you," Sam sidled up and grabbed one of the straps.

"Thank you so much," Dean patted her on the back, shoving her gently back towards the office.

The two brothers walked around her and up the stairs to the teen's room. Dean pointed to the key still stuck in the keyhole and Sam shrugged.

"Take it," he said. Dean obliged, snatching the key from the keyhole of the door and shoving it in his pocket.

They looked around before peering in the window. Neither of the curtains were closed and they could see Max sprawled on the bed, apparently asleep. Sam turned away and headed towards their room down the hall, but Dean gazed several seconds longer, examining her back and ripped t-shirt, before following Sam and ducking into their room.

~~

"I feel bad looking through a girl's bag," Dean mumbled, as he unzipped the largest pocket of the navy blue Jansport bag and dumped the contents onto the bed with a flurry of loose papers.

"What the hell?" Hundreds of pages of code, lines and lines of numbers with the occasional word, lay half crumpled on the bed. Sam gathered them all into a stack and they examined the rest of the contents.

"Two cans of ravioli, a can of refrie d beans,  ten  plastic forks , three of them broken,  and a can of peaches," Sam observed, "seems like she was living on the run. "

Dean grabbed a plastic grocery bag that was knotted together by the handles, unknotted it and glanced inside, then set it back down very quickly.

"What is it?" Sam grabbed it and looked inside. "Oh," he made a face and set the bag back on the bed. "Tampons. "

Dean nodded in affirmation. 

The backpack also contained a comb, a bar of soap wrapped in a moist brown wash cloth, several dirty pairs of socks, a pair of jeans, a grey tank top, and a Captain America shirt.

Dean picked up the shirts and examined them. There were huge tears down the backs of both of them. "Look at this," he said, offering them to Sam. Sam shrugged and waved them away. Probably just ripped.

He held up a Swiss Army knife for Dean to see and examined it. "Good quality," he observed, snapping open one of the blades.

Several speckled feathers drifted to the floor and Dean glanced at them before unzipping the outside pocket. It contained sunglasses, chapstick, three pencil stubs, a squished box of Spongebob band aids, and a small business envelope.

"Bingo," Dean grinned as he opened the envelope, pulling out a credit card, and holding it up for Sam to see.

"Maximum Ride? What kind of name is Maximum?"

Dean shrugged and pulled out a business card for some doctor in Arizona. Two more phone numbers had been scrawled on the back, one labeled Ella. In addition there was a faded, dirty photograph of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby. Dean held it up, "younger brother?"

"Maybe," Sam said absentmindedly, looking back at the computer screen where he was already searching for Maximum Ride. Dean set the business card on the table next to the laptop for Sam to look up and then replaced everything except the pages of computer code into the backpack.

"As long as she's asleep we don't need to worry, but when she wakes, she'll be hungry. I'm heading to the gas station for gas and grub. I'll be back soon. " He shut the door behind himself.

Several seconds later, a car started and drove away.

Sam changed his search from Maximum Ride, which had produced nothing, to Max Ride, the name she had given them herself. He scrolled down. Nothing here either. Several Instagram accounts and a mention of her in a blog by some emo kid named Fang, who must have bee n  high  on something when he was posting because he kept talking about fighting Erasers with a capital 'E' and saying he was flying all over the U.S., and not in an airplane, from what Sam could tell.

Search results for Doctor Martinez, on the other hand...


	10. American Beauty/American Psycho

Dean returned seven hours later moderately intoxicated with wrinkled clothes and sex hair.  He fumbled to unlock the door for several minutes before realizing that he was trying to use the number 23 key on the room number 27.

He groaned and reached into his pocket, pulling out a number 27 key. This time, the key fit and he unlocked the door.

Sam must have gone to bed since the lights were off. The alarm clock on the nightstand read 12:17 am.

Dean groped around the wall and found the light switch. He flipped it on and almost flipped his shit.

Wrong room, wrong room, wrong room.

He turned to leave, hoping he hadn’t awaken the occupant of the bed, but as he stepped away, he glanced back and stopped.

He closed the door, staring at the figure whose slight breathing was the only indication that she was alive. She lay on her side, facing the window, in a position similar to fetal.

Treading lightly, he walked to the window and shut the curtains, then turned back around and surveyed her.

She looked so young, she couldn’t be older than 18. The same girl who, the very second she met them, had declared she didn’t need any help to escape, and then had escaped not only from the vamps, but from the Winchesters as well.

Max looked like hell. Dried blood matted the hair on the back of her head, and more blood had crusted around her mouth where Tani had forced her bleeding wrists against her face and turned her into something Dean didn’t want think about. She wore a grey t-shirt and a black hoodie; both were bloodstained and seemed to be ripped on the back.

Dean walked around to the other side of the bed and froze. Protruding from the gaping slits in her shirt and hoodie were feathers. A great mass of feathers, connected to her; they were connected to her body.

Max had--

Dean stopped himself. What was he thinking this was impossible. He was clearly just a little too drunk.

Yet, there she lay.

And her... **wings** …

“What the actual fuck,” Dean murmured.

He stepped closer and leaned in to look. One of her...wings lay perfectly curved to match the shape of her body, but the other one lay slightly bent. It appeared to be broken. The color and structure of her wings were similar to that of a predatory bird, a Peregrine falcon, for example.

Dean’s eyes widened. “Oh my God.”

He recalled how, years ago, he and Sam had investigated what was referred to afterwards by the media as ‘the bird kid stunt’. He and Sam had talked to the NYPD and gathered information, but none of the clues led anywhere, and they had left it at that.

But Sam had been particularly bothered by the case. All of the data seemed to point to the stunt being physically and scientifically impossible, yet it had occurred all the same. It could definitely be categorized as ‘weird’, and the Winchesters, well they investigated weird, and they almost always found some supernatural cause for it. But this had been scientifically weird.

Dean didn’t care at the time, but Sam had been both intrigued and utterly baffled. Dean was pretty sure he had tucked all the reports and pictures away somewhere.

What if Max was one of those kids? It was more that possible, it was likely. Dean was pretty sure there wasn’t a secret population of flying kids in the US.

Max made a noise in her sleep and rolled over onto her stomach; her wings followed her change in position and spread out on top of her.

He hated to admit it, but they were beautiful. Strange, but also pretty fucking cool.

He’d already stayed too long though. Cautiously and quietly, he walked over and flipped off the light.

As he stepped outside, he took one last look back. If she was a vamp, would he be able to kill her?

He didn’t want to think about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Dean comes back to the motel 'moderately intoxicated', which implies he drove himself back to the motel while under the influence. I don't approve of drunk driving AT ALL, and you should never drive while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.


	11. The Kids Aren't Alright

Dean found the correct hotel room and unlocked it. He stepped inside, consumed in his own thoughts.

The light was still on, but Sam was asleep, head resting on his arm, fallen asleep at the laptop as he worked. Dean looked at the pages Sam was looking at and pulled the laptop out from under him. He flipped through each of the tabs.

Some were missing persons reports, and some were google searches of Max Ride. One of the search results was purple, indicating Sam had already visited the site, and it caught Dean’s eye.

It was a Blogspot link--some kid called Fang. The site had a whole lot of hits, over ten thousand visitors.

Dean clicked on the latest entry out of curiosity.

May 27, 10:23 am

‘Hey there guys, Iggy, Gaz and me currently hittin the beaches of california. Max, Angel, Nudge, Total, and that d-bag Ari split off from us and are somewhere in central US, dont know don't care. Ig and me left Gazzy at the arcade last night and found a strip club. Bouncers let us in even though neither of us are legal yet lol. Ig got special treatment due to not being able to see the girls, but we got kicked out when we ran out of money and stopped paying.’

Dean scoffed. Amateurs. He had mentioned Max though, and Kansas is definitely central US.

Dean scrolled down to previous posts. The last couple posts were about the fun they were having in Hollywood and LA, but he scrolled down a couple more and his eye caught on a particular one.

'Flew over the Grand Canyen today, trully beautiful. I definitely recomend it. We stopped at a tourist overlook around sunset and decsribed it to Iggy. Poor guy couldnt see it, but we looked down for however deep it is a mile or something? and that’s pretty much what it’s like for us while flying, only way better. We hiked down a ways then took off and found our own little cave to hide out in for the night. Flew out the next morning 20 minutes or so before sunrise.'

‘Fang’ made it sound like they can actually, well, fly.

Dean scrolled down some more and kept reading.

He looked up what seemed like ten minutes later and realized it was 2 am.

He glanced back at the screen and saw an icon at the top that indicated a new post. He clicked on it and it took back up to the top of the page.

May 28, 1:42 am

‘If any of you know any info about Max or have seen her or the girls flying around, hmu.’

There was already one posted comment.  Dean clicked on it.

‘From:  **nudgeface123** , May 28, 1:59 am

FANG WHER ARE YOU THIS IS REALLY IMPROTANT PLEASE RESPOND WE NEED HELP’

Dean frowned. From the all caps and the misspellings, he was pretty sure this was a kid. He wondered if he should tell them he knew Max’s whereabouts, but thought better of it as another comment appeared.

‘From:  **fangsblog** , May 28, 2:02 am

Nudge what happened are you okay where are you?’

Dean felt as if he was eavesdropping a private conversation, but he couldn’t look away. ‘Nudgeface123’ responded and after that the conversation didn’t stop.

‘From:  **nudgeface123** , May 28, 2:04 am

WE’re in the mittle of nowhere nevermind Angel says were in Kansas we were heading back to the house in Coloradoand we stoppe din this barn for the night and we got attacked. Angel total and ari and i got out but max didnt and we don't know where she is. Fang please help’

‘From:  **fangsblog** , May 28, 2:05 am

What attacked you? Are you safe right now?’

‘From:  **nudgeface123** , May 28, 2:10 am

Yeah were safe when they got max we flew for a couple hours and didnt stop until we reached a city we’re ina motel Angel gto for us and got hte lady to let us use the computer.  we don't know what attacked us, they werent Erasers or Flyboys or anythig they looked normal but they broke max’s wing and we think they locked her up, but then they came after us and we had to leave’

'From:  **fangsblog** , May 28, 2:12 am

Do you want to fly to cali or should i come get you’

‘From:  **nudgeface123** , May 28, 2:15 am

Can we meet at the lake where we waited for max when we were going to get Angel back … the one with the hawks?’

‘From:  **fangsblog** , May 28, 2:17 am

Yeah, Mono Lake we’ll wait for you there. Stay safe ‘

‘From:  **nudgeface123** , May 28, 2:18 am

Well leave tomorrow morning bye fang’

The message board went silent. Dean sat back and stared at the ceiling. Maybe there was a secret population of flying bird kids after all.

He looked at the top of the computer screen and clicked on the last tab that Sam had left open. It was about a project back in the late 90’s called the Angel Experiment.

There wasn’t any really specific information, just a vague description of what the experiment had aimed to achieve: to combine human and animal DNA, specifically avian. There was an incomplete list of known doctors and scientists involved who were forced to abandon the project when its morality was questioned.

The article said that no experiments were ever performed on human test subjects and it never was more than theoretical work, but Dean doubted it. People rarely know when to quit.

He got off the bed and walked back to the desk where Sam was snoring. He picked up Max’s credit card and the business card and looked back at the laptop.

A Dr. Martinez had been involved in the human-avian branch.

Dean googled her name and came up with a veterinary hospital in Arizona. The phone number still matched the one on the business card. He would call the next morning and ask about the Angel Experiment.

Finally, Dean picked up the credit card under the name Maximum Ride and got to work. He hacked into the account and looked at the balance.

“Holy shit.” There was over a hundred thousand dollars. Where the hell was she getting that money?  He doubted even she knew.

Dean traced the card and found it crisscrossed the united states. The card had also been used multiple times in New York the same month and year of the bird kid stunt.

He googled that as well. Several of the photos had been enhanced and zoomed in. There were six kids and a small black dog. One of the girls looked like Max.

Holy crap.

Dean thought about all of the clues leading up to this. The feathers in her bag, all the necessary items for living on the run, the slits in her clothing, Dr. Martinez, the bird kid stunt, and all the times in the past 24 hours where he had noticed something odd, but never believed what his eyes were telling him.

These kids were real, and they could fly.

Was this science? Or was this something else?


	12. New Perspective

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an updated rewrite of Chapter 12. I am rewriting chapters 12 and 13 in order to change the direction of the plot.

I wake up on a strange, yet comfy bed, with a headache like an Eraser repeatedly pounding my head into concrete. No, seriously, I would know.  

I need food. And water. I'm probably super dehydrated and the flock-

Shit. I still have no idea where they are. Dear God, please be okay.  If we’re lucky, they got out, followed my instructions, and are headed to California. If I’m really lucky, Angel won’t try to take over the flock while I’m gone. 

I look for my backpack, but it's nowhere in my room. Crap. I left it by the check-in desk. I desperately hope no one's found it or gone through it yet. 

I glance at my watch. Still cracked but apparently also still working. It's 2:21 am. The office won't be open. 

Everything is still strangely loud, but less so than before.  I step outside and cool, crisp air washes over me.  I can hear crickets but the air is mostly still.  

I walk down the stairs, very conscious about every noise I make, and cross over to the office, which is closed, but a night light is on and is bright enough for some light to shine through the blinds.

I squeeze my eyes shut and beg some disembodied holy force before I look through the window.

Please, please, PLEASE still be there. I risked my life for you. 

I squint into the blurry room, cupping my hands to see better.  I wonder if I need glasses. That's bullshit, Max, you have raptor vision. I tell myself to shut up.

I look inside, hoping, praying…

But it's gone. I don't know what happened to it. It's just gone. I grasp the door jamb to steady myself. Fuck. Jesus Christ I'm so fucked.

I'm in so much trouble. Someone's found me. Probably Erasers, maybe Jeb too, maybe even those guys from the barn.

I need help. I can’t do this on my own. 

If I can get to a computer, I should be able to talk to Fang. I glance into the cramped office. It’s almost too easy. 

I only hesitate for a second before looking for a way to pick the lock. I spot a bobby pin on the sidewalk and pick it up.  

“Sorry sorry sorry,” I whisper as I pick the lock and open the door. Luckily, there is no alarm. I walk around the cluttered desk and take a seat at the computer. This is when Nudge’s hacking skills would really come in handy. 

The monitor lights up and the password bar appears. I look around the office for a clue. There are pictures of family members, vacations, a birthday party. This won’t get me anywhere. It’s not like I’m Sherlock Holmes. 

I glance down at the papers and notepads scattered around the desk. This person is obviously very disorganized, and possibly...forgetful. 

I open up the drawer of the desk and look for a post-it note. If I’m lucky, she wrote down the password so she wouldn’t forget it.

“Bingo,” I whisper. Tucked in the corner under some paper clips is a red post-it note that reads:

PASS:

Molly4254

I type in the password and the screen lights up. I grin. Who said nothing in life was easy?

I open up the search engine and quickly find Fang’s blog. I scroll past his bio and description to the most recent post. 

May 28, 1:42 am

‘If any of you know any info about Max or have seen her or the girls flying around, hmu.’

How ironic. 

There’s a whole string of comments and I click to read them. Almost instantly, I sigh with relief. Nudge, Angel, Ari, and Total are okay and headed to Mono Lake. Pretty stupid of them to leave this entire conversation up where anyone can access it though. 

I read through it all. Mono Lake. I can make it. 

I click ‘Add Comment’.  

‘From:  **max** , May 28, 2:33 am

Fang. This is Max. I need help. Not thru your blog its not safe. I’ll call you whats your number’

Please please please still be awake. I refresh the page four times. Nothing. 

I lean back in the chair. My backpack is gone. I haven’t eaten in a solid 24 hours. Something is really, seriously wrong with me. 

I click refresh one last time. A comment pops up. 

‘From:  **fangsblog** , May 28, 2:36 am

I’ve got a burner cell. Call me. 323-629-4686’

I grab a sharpie from the desk and write the number down on my hand. Luckily, there’s a phone on the desk. I dial the number as my stomach does flip-flops. 

It rings, once, twice...click. Someone answers.

“Hello?”

I sink into the chair with relief as I recognize the familiar voice. “Hey Fang.”

“Max! Are you alright? What happened?” 

“Well I’m alive. I can explain it all better later but basically, we decided to stay in this abandoned barn and then it turns out that some sort of mutant freaks use it as their creepy lair. Angel and Nudge and Ari and Total got out but these people attacked and they broke my wing. They locked me up in this cage and,” I shudder and take a breath, trying to hold back tears. I promise I’m not the crying type, I’m just so exhausted. 

“Max,” Fang’s voice is soft. God, I’ve missed him so much. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Well, see, I don’t know. They were convinced I’m some sort of angel, and there were these two guys with machetes and they said the people who captured me were vampires, which is, like, fucking nuts, but then one of the so-called vampires bled into my mouth, and,” I take a deep breath, “I feel really sick, Fang,” I whisper. None of us ever get sick. 

I can’t stop talking. It’s just all coming out. “The two guys, the Winchesters, they helped me get out but I ran and I’m at this sleazy motel and I’m really, really hungry. And my backpack--it’s gone. All the code from the Institute, any hope or chance of finding our parents, it’s gone. I think someone found me. I really need to go. I’m going to try to get to Mono Lake by tomorrow and--”

“Max.” Fang cuts me off. “Max there’s no rush. Mono Lake would take two full days by car, not to mention that you’re flying and hungry and sick. All that matters is that you’re okay.”

I take a shuddering breath and nod. “I miss you.”

“I know,” he says. I can hear the grin in his voice over the background noise of traffic.

“How’s LA?”

“Boring, dirty, and lonely without the rest of you.” 

I smile. “Encounter any Erasers?”

“None so far. Knock on wood.” I hear three knocks from his end of the phone and laugh. 

As I talk, I remember my earlier suspicions. I google Sam and Dean Winchester. The results...well, they’re bizarre to say the least.

“Look, Max, I left Gaz and Iggy along in the motel room so I’m gonna go, okay?”

“Yeah, no problem. I’m going somewhere else, hopefully lose the trail of whoever found me.”

“See you in two days.” 

“Yeah, see you.” I’m about to hang up the phone when I sense something and look up. 

“Motherfucker!” I jump up from the chair and get ready to fight. Standing in the doorway is none other than Dean Winchester himself, holding a machete.


	13. We're So Starving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an updated rewrite of Chapter 13. I have rewritten chapters 12 and 13 to change the direction of the plot.

I’m about to hang up the phone when I sense something and look up. 

“Motherfucker!” I jump up from the chair and get ready to fight. Standing in the doorway is none other than Dean Winchester himself, holding a machete.

“What do you want?” I snarl at Dean. 

“Max,” he pleads. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“But…?” I anticipate his thinking. 

“But I can’t let you leave. You’re dangerous.” He steps into the tiny office. With one good aim of his blade, I’m dead. 

“I’d be a lot less dangerous if you’d stop aiming that at my head, Dean.” My stomach is twisting itself in knots. I’m so hungry. 

“Fine.” He tosses the machete outside and it clatters on the concrete. 

“Just trust me, and come with me.” He offers a hand. He’s blocking the only exit.

I roll my eyes. “As if.” 

I jump over the desk and kick him in the chest. He falls backwards, and I stumble past him and run out into the parking lot. 

“Max!”

I turn around to look at him lying on the sidewalk. He picks himself up, shoving something into the waistband of his blue jeans. 

Suddenly everything sounds clouded, muffled, like I’m underwater. There’s a high pitched ringing in my left ear, and the soft thud of a heartbeat keeping a steady tempo. I squint my eyes and shake my head, trying to make it go away. 

He stands up. One hand is behind his back. He probably has a fucking gun. That’s literally the last thing I need right now.  

A single streetlight illuminates the parking lot, and it flickers as he takes a step forward and I take a small step backwards.

My vision is blurring around the edges and my stomach aches. The thudding in my ears grows louder.

He takes another step forward and he’s crouching slightly, like I’m an animal about to pounce or something.

I take a slightly larger step back and realize I’m completely unarmed. I look around for anything to use to defend myself, but there’s nothing. It’s just me and him, alone in the parking lot. He could shoot me or slit my throat and no one would know any better.  

The heartbeat speeds up ever so slightly, as I continue to squint at him.

His head tilts in confusion, but I’m rooted to the spot, paralyzed.

His mouth is moving like he’s saying something but I can’t hear. I shake my head, trying to clear the noise, but the heartbeat is now a steady drumming in my ears. 

His arm slides back down to his side. Empty handed.

His mouth keeps moving, but all I can hear is the pounding.

It's not my heart that's beating. Its his. My foot slides backwards in the gravel. My mouth opens and closes silently. I want to--need to--say something, but I can't form the words.

My tongue slips out and across my cracked lips.  I’m really fucking hungry, goddammit. His heart rate jumps and begins to accelerate.

His arm is moving back again, and he reaches behind his waist and his arm clenches slightly.

My foot slips a little more. Please don’t shoot me you asshole.

I can’t see. I can’t think.  All I can hear is the heartbeat.

I turn and start running.  Almost immediately, I trip on the asphalt and crash onto the pavement on my hands and knees, the gravel digging into my flesh.  

Glancing back over my shoulder, I see him jogging towards me, gun at arms length in front of him.  I stumble up and start forward again, trying not to trip over my own feet. I can still see his lips moving, but turn back around and start sprinting.  

A gunshot breaks the silence, and a bullet grazes my thigh. I stumble, run faster, and then jump, unfurl my wings and in an instant I’m flying and I’m up above the parking lot and I'm free. 

I soar upwards into the velvet night. Good luck catching me know, sucker.

I still hear the heartbeat but suddenly each heartbeat is stab to my head I swear I can feel my skull cracking and breaking and falling apart and all I can see are letters in an alphabet I don’t understand, the symbols stream across my consciousness and I cry out but it’s all I can do to stop from shrieking.  

I feel myself falling, I’m crumpling like paper and I’m dying, I’m dying, it’s over, Fang's not here; no one can save me. This heartbeat in my head, this headache, this heartache, these numbers, these letters, these places, rooms, buildings I’ve never seen. 

It can’t be the School, we blew it up.  

And suddenly there’s Fang: I can see him, and he's alive but he’s dying and he’s in pain on a cold linoleum floor, and he's crying. He's fucking crying and there's blood everywhere.  

I'm surprised there's no blood on my own hands the way my head is falling apart. I hate these fucking headaches the fucking microchip this whole fucking life---------------------------------


	14. My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have rewritten the two previous chapters since posting them in order to change the direction of the plot. Please go read them. :)

Dean yawned. It was late, or should he say early. 2:30 in the morning was far past his bedtime.

To be fair, not once in his life had he actually had a bedtime. Not since Mom’s death at least. 

He glanced back down at all the information he had found on the flock. He wondered if he knew more about their origins than even they did. 

He had way too many tabs open, and on the shitty motel wifi, it was making Sam’s laptop run slow. He clicked through them, closing the ones that hadn’t revealed any information or weren’t useful anymore. He clicked on Fang’s blog and was about to close it when a new comment appeared and he paused. 

‘From:  **max** , May 28, 2:33 am

Fang. This is Max. I need help. Not thru your blog its not safe. I’ll call you whats your number’

Max was asleep last time he checked. If she was awake, it meant she was dangerous. How had she found internet access? There weren’t computers in the motel rooms, and he doubted she had a working smartphone. 

Curious, Dean waited for a response. 

He was about to give up and go find Max himself when the next comment finally appeared. 

‘From:  **fangsblog** , May 28, 2:36 am

I’ve got a burner cell. Call me. 323-629-4686’

If Max was on the phone, she would a) be preoccupied and b) stay in the same place for at least several minutes, long enough for him to locate her. He grabbed a gun out of the duffle on the bed and stuck it in his waistband, then grabbed a machete and headed towards the door. 

Dean considered waking Sam for backup, but decided against it. He would have to waste time explaining what he had learned since yesterday. In that time, Max might be gone. 

Silently, he clicked off the light and opened the door. He peeked through the windows into Max’s room, but it was empty as he had expected. 

He glanced downstairs and noticed a light coming from the office, which definitely should not have been open at that hour of the morning. 

Quietly, he descended the stairs and approached the door. He could hear her talking inside. 

“--they were convinced I’m some sort of angel, and there were these two guys with machetes and they said the people who captured me were vampires, which is, like, fucking nuts, but then one of the so-called vampires bled into my mouth, and,” Max paused, and lowered her voice. “I feel really sick, Fang.”

Dean leaned against the wall, attentive. “The two guys, the Winchesters, they helped me get out but I ran and I’m at this sleazy motel and I’m really, really hungry. And my backpack--it’s gone. All the code from the Institute, any hope or chance of finding our parents, it’s gone.”

Dean frowned, guilty about having taken her backpack. He wondered what “the Institute” was. 

“I really need to go,” Max continued, “I’m going to try to get to Mono Lake by tomorrow and--”

She stopped talking, and Dean could faintly hear a voice on the other end of the line. When Max spoke again, she sounded sad. “I miss you.”

Dean wondered if Fang was her boyfriend. He peeked through the blinds on the window. She was sitting in the swivel chair behind the desk, cradling the phone, and smiling. 

“Encounter any Erasers?” she asked, and his response must have amused her because she laughed. She really was beautiful when she smiled. 

She typed something into the computer as she listened, then her eyes went wide and she frowned at the screen. 

She responded on the phone, “Yeah, no problem. I’m going somewhere else, hopefully lose the trail of whoever found me.”

Dean realized the conversation was about to end, and peered into the dark room. 

“Yeah, see you,” Max said, and Dean stepped into the doorway. 

Her eyes snapped up to meet his and suddenly her face was once again a mask of snark and aggression. “Motherfucker!” she yelled at him. “What do you want?” 

“Max,” Dean tried to sound kind and nonthreatening. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“But…?” 

“But I can’t let you leave. You’re dangerous.” Dean stepped into the office, machete in hand. Max didn’t understand what was happening to her, but Dean did. He had experienced it first hand. 

“I’d be a lot less dangerous if you’d stop aiming that at my head, Dean.” 

“Fine.” Dean tossed the machete outside, allowing it to fall loudly on the concrete. Sam was a light sleeper. If Dean was lucky, he would wake up. 

“Just trust me, and come with me.” Dean held out his hand to Max, hoping she wouldn’t make this difficult. She rolled her eyes. “As if.” 

Fuck. She was going to make this difficult. In one swift movement, she jumped over the desk and kicked him in the chest. The impact caused Dean to fall over, hitting the door jamb and landing hard on the concrete. He felt the gun in his waistband dislodge and fall out. Max jumped over him and ran into the parking lot. 

“Max!” He called desperately after her as he picked up the gun and stuck it back in his belt. She turned briefly, then scrunched up her face and stood still. 

Dean stood, one hand still on his gun. She narrowed her eyes and stepped back.

“Max? Max, listen to me. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Her face was blank and she showed no recognition that she was hearing what he was saying.  

Dean let go of the gun and brought both his arms out in front of him.  “Max. Hey, Max, you need to focus; listen to my voice.”

She squinted, and shook her head.

"Max? Are you okay? Can you hear me?"    

She gave no affirmation, but gazed, like a deer in the headlights, in his direction.  She licked her lips, slowly.  He moved his hand back and grabbed hold of the gun again, carefully.

“Max, listen to me, I need you to come with me.  I’m going to help you, I promise.”

Her foot slipped back, and she scrunched up her face as if she could hear something Dean couldn’t.

Suddenly she turned and started running. She only got a couple of yards before crashing to the street on her hands and knees.

Dean pulled out the gun and held it out warily. Her shirt was shredded in the back and her wings were visible against her bare skin. She looked back at him over her shoulder, her face a mask trying desperately to conceal pain.  

She got back up and started running again, but Dean couldn’t just let her go. She was dangerous, she could hurt anyone, and so, despite his instincts, he shot her. The bullet grazed her leg and she stumbled but kept sprinting and suddenly she unfurled her wings, and they extended as she jumped up and they carried her weight and she soared up, literally flying.

Her wings must have been ten to fifteen feet long, and Dean lowered his gun as he stared up in disbelief. She was rising, and just kept flying, her beautiful wings beating to support her fragile frame in midair.

It was breathtaking. And then suddenly, as if someone had flipped a switch, she cried out, her whole body winced, and she clutched her head as she began to plummet.  

Dean watched helplessly as she fell out of the vast, dark sky, her wings useless and her body tense, and he watched as she continued to spiral down, crashing into a field on the other side of road.

Even before she hit the ground, he began sprinting towards her. There, she lay, wings sprawled out underneath her, her body limp, blood seeping into the dirt around her from her head and torso.  

He approached cautiously and crouched by her injured body, gun still drawn. He shook her in an attempt to wake her, but she was unresponsive.

Dean examined Max's injuries as he shoved his gun back into his belt. She was pretty badly bruised, and probably had some broken bones on top of it. Not to mention the bullet wound in her thigh. 

Dean deemed Max good enough to move and carefully lifted her body into a sitting position, folded her wings as gently as possible to make her easier and less noticeable to carry, then picked her up, bridal style, and carried her across the street. He stumbled towards the Impala as Sam ran out of the motel room. 

“Dean, what’s going on? I heard a gunshot.” 

“Get our shit together. We need to scram. I’ll explain in the car.” Sam nodded and ran back inside. A couple people were emerging from their rooms after hearing the gunshot. 

Dean fumbled with the door handle and laid Max down in the back seat, covering her broken, bleeding body with his jacket.  A man standing in the doorway right in front of the Impala pulled out his phone and started dialing 911. 

Dean shut the door and ran around to the driver’s seat. Sam ran down carrying their duffels and Max’s backpack as Dean started the car. As soon as Sam was seated, Dean hit the gas and they screeched out of the parking lot, just as police sirens began to wail in the distance. 


	15. The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide is Press Coverage

“See you in two days,” Fang promised fondly, wishing he could see her right then and there; he wanted to hold her in his arms so that he could see for himself that she was okay.

“Yeah, see you.” Max’s voice sounded tired, heavy from pain and heartache. Fang let the phone drop from his ear and stared at it a moment longer, wishing he didn’t have to go; wishing he could talk to her all night. But the call didn’t end. 

He heard Max’s voice clear, and angry. “Motherfucker!” 

Fang stared at the phone. Was she talking to him? He lifted the phone back up to his ear and listened. “Hello?” 

Fang could hear Max’s voice, but it was distant. “What do you want?” She was talking to someone else, probably unaware that the call was still going, and she was angry. 

“Max, I don’t want to hurt you.” A man’s voice.  

“But…?” The snark was back in Max’s voice: the familiar sarcasm that they had used far too often on Whitecoats. This man was someone she didn’t like.

“But I can’t let you leave. You’re dangerous.” Fang unconsciously clenched his jaw. This man was threatening Max. And it was pissing Fang off. 

“I’d be a lot less dangerous if you’d stop aiming that at my head, Dean.” Aiming what? Fang frowned. If nothing else, Max’s sass was reassuring. It told Fang that she was in control of the situation. 

“Fine.” The man paused, then continued, “just trust me, and come with me.” 

“As if.” 

Fang flinched as a loud crash ensued on the other end of the line. 

“Max?!” He yelled, but the only response was silence. As if it would be of any help, he yelled again. “Max!”

He could hear Dean’s voice, but it was faint, and he couldn’t make out what he was saying. “Max!” Fang yelled again. A stranger on a morning jog gave him a funny look. 

Fang listened intently, hoping for some sign that Max was okay. Through the phone, a single sound broke the silence: a gunshot. 

Fang clenched his eyes and punched the wall he had been leaning against, punched it once, twice, harder, faster. 

A car drove by and its blaring headlight shone in his eyes, forcing him back to reality. He looked down at his knuckles. They were scraped and dripping blood.

Fang threw the phone on the ground and started running. He didn’t know where he was going, he just needed to get out. 

He ran through a back alley, looking for somewhere inconspicuous where he could take flight. Sure, in Kansas it was almost 3 am, but in Los Angeles, California, it was nearly 5 am and early risers were starting their daily commutes. 

He ran through a neighborhood until he happened upon a park. He sprinted across the grass and leapt into the air. 

He was above the clouds in no time. 

~

When he finally landed, it was on top of one of America’s most famous landmarks. To be exact, Fang was sitting on top of the ‘H’ in the Hollywood sign.

He forlornly watched the sun rise over the sprawling LA cityscape. 

Max couldn’t be dead. Fang didn’t exist in a world where there was no Maximum Ride. It simply wasn’t possible. 

And yet, he had heard the gunshot, the silence. 

Fang was too consumed in his thoughts to notice when an unshaven man in a tan trenchcoat appeared on the other side of the H. 

“Hello Fang.” 

Fang startled and stared at the man. “How do you...how did you…” 

“I just want to ask some questions,” the man said, unemotionally. He stared out towards the horizon, unblinking. 

“I have to go,” Fang said cooly, and started to stand up. In the blink of an eye, the man was sitting next to him, grasping his arm with such strength that Fang made a noise of surprise. 

“I said, I want to ask you some questions.” The man’s voice was gruff, unwavering, commanding. 

If looks could kill, the man would have spontaneously combusted. Fang grasped the man’s hand and ripped it from his arm. “Too bad,” he hissed, and jumped forward off of their shared perch. 

The man watched as he somersaulted in midair, careening towards the ground. In one swift motion, glossy black wings extended from under his t-shirt, and he glided down the mountain. 

The man sighed, clenched his jaw, and leapt. 

As Fang soared back up, he was shocked to see the man follow him, wingless. As Fang climbed higher in the air, the man in the trench coat was gaining on him, rising in midair, seemingly levitating. 

When Fang glanced down at the ground, the man’s shadow bore massive wings, nearly 20 feet across, but the man himself had no physical wings. Fang bit his lip. This was too weird. 

Fang folded in his wings and dropped, feet out, aiming for the man’s chest. In less than a second, he hit his target. 

Fang’s knees buckled as he smashed into the man’s torso, and he tumbled backwards, free falling towards the dirt below. He whipped his wings out just in time and managed to avoid crashing into the dusty chaparral of the mountain. He gazed up, searching the skies. 

The man had vanished. Fang rose higher and higher, searching below him for the mysterious man. Suddenly, he spotted something out of the corner of his eye and only narrowly avoided crashing into him. 

“Who are you?” He yelled. 

The man hovered just above him. “It makes no difference who I am.” 

Fang propelled himself upward and circled the man. “Are you one of the Winchesters? What do you want?”

The man frowned. “I am not a Winchester.”

Fang hovered, beating his wings. “What do you want?”

The man spoke calmly, but his voice conveyed power, authority. “I want to know what happened to Maximum Ride.” 

Fang shot like a bullet at the man and they collided. “You still don’t know, do you?” Fang beat his wings as he pummelled the man. “You and your little microchips,” Fang punched the man in the temple. “You know our every move,” he gasped out, “track us day and night,” he was short of breath as he kneed the man in the stomach. His face was livid. “We never got to have a childhood.” 

Fang punched the man in the jaw, the nose, and blood dripped on his perfectly crisp shirt. “We didn’t even get to grow up!” He screamed, and aimed another punch at the man’s face.

It might have been a trick of the light, a reflection of the rising sun, but for a split second, Fang could have sworn the man’s eyes glowed. 

He grabbed Fang’s fist as it approached his face and pulled down, hard.  Fang lost his balance, his momentum, as the man began returning the assault Fang had just delivered. “It is not your place,” he growled as the bruises formed on Fang’s arms, “to question the methods,” he jabbed Fang in the stomach, then slammed his knee into Fang’s face, “of those above you.” 

Fang snapped his head back up and spit out blood, struggling to stay aloft. He backed up, keeping his distance. His lip was busted, his nose might be broken too. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and it came off bloody. 

The man, though his nose was coated in blood, floated serenely and unphased by their fight. “You haven’t answered my question, Fang. What happened to Maximum Ride?”

Fang stared at him, then looked down and outward across the vast industrial landscape. The sun illuminated his hair like a halo as he beat his wings, defeated, yet proud. He laughed maliciously. 

“All your technology, your resources,” he glared at the man in the trench coat. “You have so much, and yet…” Fang looked past the man, towards the beach, towards the infinite horizon. 

“You still don’t know,” he said incredulously, mockingly. Fang took a deep breath, shuddering. “You still don’t know that  _ she’s gone _ .” He made eye contact with the man, who frowned, perplexed. 

“She’s gone!” He screamed. “And it’s all your fault!”

He shot towards the man, fists ready. The impact itself would have knocked them both out of the air, but the man snapped his fingers before they could collide. Fang went limp, expressionless, and began to fall. The man swooped down and took hold of Fang’s limp body. 

“For the record,” he muttered, “My name is Castiel, and it is not my fault.”

Then they both vanished. 


	16. A Fever You Can't Sweat Out

I wake up to the sound of sustained screaming, only to realize it’s coming from me. I seem to be in a moving vehicle and it swerves wildly as a man lets out a long string of expletives.

Some sort of fabric covers my face and upper body, obscuring my vision. The fact that I have no idea where the _fuck_ I am or what the hell happened immediately triggers a fight or flight response, literally.

I panic, thrashing around to throw off a leather jacket that was draped over me, and let out a gasp of anguish as my entire body convulses in pain. It feels like every bone in my body is broken.

The car has stopped swerving and comes to a sharp halt, throwing me forward into the back of the drivers seat. My head hits it with a thud, and I let out a whimper.  As I look up, I notice who’s sitting in the passenger seat.   

“Hey, Max.” Sam looks at me worriedly, and starts unbuckling his seatbelt.

Oh god.  I fumble with the door and stumble out of the car. I fall, hard, onto the hot asphalt. My whole body screams at me to stop. My head is pounding, and I feel nauseous. It takes all the effort I have to drag myself away from the car.

I hear two car doors slam and when I squint upwards, Dean stands above me in the blinding sun, holding a machete. “Max?”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK I need to get out of here. Hauling up my body, I start crawling towards the side of the road.

Blood drips down my face and into my eyes. I barely have enough time to register the footsteps crunching on the asphalt behind me before strong arms grab me around the waist and haul me up. I think half of my ribs might be broken.

One of my legs collapses but I refuse to go down without a fight. I flail my arms, and elbow him in the face.  

“Let me go!”  

He grunts and grabs my flailing arms, twisting them behind my back, but keeping himself situated behind me.

My vision is blurry at best, but as I stomp on Sam’s foot, I can see Dean has turned around and is rummaging around in the car.

He grabs something from inside it, just as I wrench myself free. I stumble several steps, clutching my abdomen, before he grips my shoulders once again and yanks me towards him.  I flail backwards and extend my wings with as much umph as I can summon, swatting Sam in the face, surprising him enough to give me the chance to stagger down the road out of his reach.

I turn around to face them as they approach, cautiously continuing to limp backwards. Sam can't seem to look away from my wings. Dean’s still holding the machete, but he tosses a roll of duct tape at Sam, who snaps out of it and catches it with ease.

“Max, we’re not trying to hurt you.” Dean offers his words as one would to a wounded animal or a small child.

“Nice words coming from someone holding a machete,” I sneer, trying to mask the awful pain of-- well, of everything.  The intended sarcasm only comes across as pathetic.

“It’s not what you think,” Dean started.

“Just leave me alone,” I retort, my voice cracking from dehydration.

“Max, I can’t do that, you’re liable to hurt someone.”

I grimace. The pain in my stomach is getting worse. I’ve barely eaten in the last 36 hours. I have the urge to attack, to maim, even kill. I’m so hungry.

All of my senses are off the walls heightened, and yet, everything is dull, colorless, and blurry.  There’s some instinct inside me that I keep trying to push away, but what if I just give in?

I shake my head and Fang’s scream seems to echo inside my head. Was it just a dream, a nightmare? A vision of a man in a trenchcoat snapping his fingers, followed by Fang falling out of the sky sticks in my brain.

Dean is approaching me, and I can hear his heartbeat again, growing louder and louder and louder.  

I just want to be free.  From my past, from my destiny, from myself. Why can’t anyone ever leave me alone.

“Max!” I look up and meet Dean’s gaze.  “Max, you need to listen to me.  I know you’re hurting, and hungry, and probably hate us, but just listen to me. Concentrate on my voice.”

I squint, trying to rid my head from the sound of his heartbeat, but it’s practically impossible when all of my senses are being overloaded.

“Max, I know you don’t trust us, but  you need to try to believe me for just a second.  The woman who held you captive, Tani, she bled in your mouth, right?”  I meet his gaze again and nod hesitantly.  The pain in my abdomen is getting worse.

“When she bled in your mouth she tried to turn you,”  he pauses and takes a breath, “Max, she turned you into what she is. She turned you into a vampire.”

I shake my head. Why the hell does my life have to be so goddamn batshit crazy?

My head begins pounding again, and it takes most of my remaining strength to keep myself from collapsing in the middle of the road.

Dean adjusts his grip on the machete in his hand and I pray that he doesn't decide to make his move now.  I'm the most vulnerable I've ever been. Every muscle, every bone, every cell in my body feels as if it’s collapsing. The sun hurts my eyes, and it burns my skin.  I let my wings go limp and stumble backwards, trying not to let my guard down.

I hate this feeling--defeat.  There’s no victory, no Erasers to escape from, no Whitecoats to blame, to mock, to foil.  The only enemy is myself.

I can't be a _vampire_. Sure, my flock may seem to have flown straight out of an existentialist sci-fi young adult adventure novel, but vampires? It's just not...possible.

But what if Dean isn’t crazy?  He and Sam undoubtedly believed the crap they were telling me.  What if there's actually some truth to it? What if I am what he says I am: a goddamn vampire, like the Freaks in the barn?

For one, since this isn't some sappy romance novel, it means I'm a danger to myself and everyone around me, especially the Winchesters. So then why didn’t they just leave me to die?

“Max, please just trust me.” Dean's voice brings me back from the depths of my inner conscious and I refocus my gaze on the Winchesters.

How did I even get here? I remember flying, and I remember the headache, and I remember falling. They got me out of that town, but at what cost? Am I so important to them that they would risk their own safety? Or is the price on my head simply worth the effort?

“If you come with us we should be able to cure you.”

I can’t trust the Winchesters. I’ve only just met them, and they essentially kidnapped me. I have no idea who they are or what they want with me. But, I'm bleeding and broken and exhausted, and I can't trust my instincts or my mind. I have no options. My only option is them.

So I stop. I stop fighting them. I stop fighting myself.  I've only actually _prayed_ a handful of times in my entire life, but this time, I need some serious divine intervention to help me with this mess.

_Dear God, and also the Winchesters,_

_Please don't kill me. Please don't hand me over to the Whitecoats. And please, please don't make me regret this decision to actually trust someone for once._

_Thanks._

“Don’t hurt me,” my voice cracks.

Dean exchanges a look with Sam, then holds up his hands and sets the machete beside him on the ground.

“I won’t hurt you. I promise.”

Suddenly, my stomach spasms, what little strength I have left gives out, I collapse on the ground, and the last thing I remember is my vision going red.

…

  


“I won’t hurt you. I promise,” Dean assured the crazed girl, hoping his voice sounding as genuine as he intended.

She looked at him, seemingly on the verge of letting down her guard and complying, when she suddenly clutched her stomach and groaned in pain.  

“Max, are you okay?”

She seemed to wobble for a second, before sinking to her knees, her wings draping around her bruised form. Dean stepped forward hesitantly, before throwing caution to the wind and rushing forward.  “Max!”

He crouched down, hands on her shoulders, holding up her limp torso.

“Max, please,” he begged.

Suddenly, her head snapped upward and she glared into his eyes.   

Dean jumped backwards, reaching for the gun in his waistband, but it wasn’t there.  He backpedaled, trying not to trip over his own feet as she slowly rose, her eyes bloodthirsty and her sneer growing sharper by the second.

Dean glanced over at Sam, armed with only duct tape. _Fuck._ He glanced quickly behind him, and grabbed the machete he had so carelessly thrown away.

When he looked back at Max, her teeth were bared. As he watched, fangs descended from her gums.  Her eyes were bloodshot and full of malice.  The monster inside her had won.

Almost before he expected it, she leapt at him.  Dean slashed at her with the blade in his hand, hoping desperately he wouldn’t have to use it lethally. Although it deterred her advance, it did not discourage her intent to kill.

“Sam, grab another machete out of the car,” Dean instructed to his brother, still standing on the other side of him, unsure of what to do.  

He immediately complied, sneaking behind Dean as he wielded the machete against Max.  

As Sam leaned into the car to grab the second machete, he heard a snarl and looked up just in time to see Max charging at Dean.

“Dean!”  

Dean sliced through the air, trying to scare her off, but in her rage, she had no fear, no mercy, only an instinct to kill.

She collided with him, and his machete sank deep into her stomach, just as her teeth sank into his shoulder.


	17. Death of a Bachelor

Dean groaned in agony as Max bit into his shoulder. He twisted the blade deeper into her and she howled in pain, releasing her bite on him as she began coughing up her own blood.  

Sam watched helplessly as Max convulsed, then once again bit down on Dean’s neck, the vampire blood in her mouth mixing with the blood on his wounds and entering his bloodstream.

Dean cried out in realization and shoved her away. She staggered backwards, clutching the blade still in her stomach. Wincing, she ripped it out, throwing the machete to the side. She smiled faintly and staggered for a second, before crashing onto the asphalt, unconscious.

“Dean!” Sam dashed over to his brother who had fallen to his knees, clutching his shoulder, blood oozing in between his fingers, and dripping down his shirt.

Dean looked up at Sam in torment. “It’s in me.”

“No.” Sam knelt down, moving his hand from his shoulder in order to assess the wound. “No no no no no.  Not again, Dean. not again.”

“It’s too late.” Dean grimaced, as Sam helped him to his feet.  “She turned me. I can already feel the bite healing.”

“No no no,” Sam said under his breath, almost solely for his own benefit at this point. “Not again, not again.” Sam looked at Dean with haunted eyes. “I’m sorry, Dean I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.”

“Hey, stop it.” Dean turned and gripped his younger brother’s shoulders, looking up at his face, and realizing how distraught he was.“Sammy, it’s not your fault.”

Sam took a deep breath, and nodded. “We’ll fix this Dean. I promise.”

The two brother secured Max’s wrists and ankles with the duct tape and stuck a piece over her mouth for good measure. Then they hauled up her limp body and secured it in the backseat of the impala.  

As Dean stood back up, the entire earth seemed to sway for a second. He groaned and pressed a hand to his head, trying to make the headache go away out of sheer will.

“Dean?” Sam looked up from the other side of the car and shut the door.

“I think you better drive, Sammy,” Dean mumbled. He pulled the keys out of his pocket and tossed them to Sam. As he opened the passenger door, he noticed the machete still lying on the asphalt where Max had thrown it.

Dean walked over and picked it up. It made his hand sticky with blood. He knew the vampire blood was affecting him because he was not repulsed. On the contrary, it invigorated him. The scent, the feel of blood on his skin left him wanting more.

He took a deep breath to swallow his instincts and walked back over to the Impala. He opened the trunk and tossed it in. Then he slammed it shut. It was a seven hour drive to Bobby’s. He just needed to stop himself from killing Sam. Easy peasy.


	18. Can't Fight Against the Youth

Fang lay unconscious in a metal chair that slightly resembled a dentist’s chair, but more sinister, hellish, and torture-chamber-like. Cuffs for the wrists, ankles, and neck appeared to be built into the chair for the specific purpose of restraint. But, realistically what other purpose would they serve? Bondage? Highly doubtful. This was heaven, after all.

Three men and one woman stood behind a metal desk, waiting for their prisoner to regain consciousness. Out of the men, one was a balding, middle-aged, slightly overweight man, the second was a lanky, nearsighted doctor with a mustache, and the last was a gruff, amiable looking man in a tan trench coat.  The woman was undeniably beautiful, but her eyes were like flint. She was clearly the one calling the shots, and sat in a swivel chair behind the desk, while the three men stood behind her patiently.

As she waited, she examined a file, similar to one a psychiatrist might keep on the status and health of a patient. It was a considerably larger file, full of lab reports and data.

“Jeb, this file contains all the information you have concerning Subject 003, correct?”

The mustached doctor replied,“Yes, ma'am. We’ve been collecting the data over the last 17 years, as you instructed.”

“I see this file contains information on his physical capabilities. Strengths and weaknesses, and such, but have you been analyzing his mental state? For example, have you analyzed the conditions under which he thrives? The conditions in which he suffers? How far he can be pushed before he will lose the will to fight? That's really what we need, not a list of the foods that are the most energy efficient for his accelerated metabolism.” She glanced back at him expectantly.

“Yes, ma'am. We have conducted many tests, not individually, but group wise on subjects 001-006, testing their endurance and tolerance for pain. Subject 003 has shown considerable tolerance to physical pain, his pride even surpassing his physical need for medical assistance, which, might I add, almost killed him when the Flock had an encounter with one of our retrieval teams. Of course, you are familiar with that incident, because it facilitated the placement of the subjects in the hands of Anna, under the disguise of Anne Walker.”

“I don't care, Jeb,” Naomi cut him off, swivelling around to stare him down. “I already know about that. Tell me something I don't know about him.”

Jeb shifted uncomfortably and nodded. “Due to his tolerance for pain, it is unlikely he will give any information on the whereabouts and well-being of the rest of the Flock. It is, in fact, quite likely he will be willing to die before he betrays his friends.”

“That is inconsequential. Any information I need can be drilled out of him,” Naomi interjected, turning back around and opening a drawer. She pulled out a tray of instruments capable of killing any person or angel if not wielded correctly. Fortunately, Naomi was one of the only beings alive who _did_ know how to use the instruments correctly.

“I hate to disagree, but ever since Subject 001 disappeared off the metaphorical map, we have no way to verify her location. Although we are still capable of locating the rest of the Flock, we have no way of knowing if what happened to Max could also happen to them and we could lose track of them altogether. If you irreparably damage him, mentally or physically, we could lose our third most valuable subject.” Jeb inhaled sharply as Naomi swivelled back around to look at him.

“I hope your personal attachment to these subjects hasn't clouded your faith in our methods, Jeb,” she warned.

The scientist swallowed nervously. “I admit I have some internal inclination to protect the Flock after all we have been through together.”

Naomi scoffed at him, but he continued. “However, I will obey any and all directions you give me, no matter what they may be.”

“Thank you for your input, Jeb. I will take it into consideration. I am curious though, if you do not approve of my methods, what would you do in my place?”

“If I may, Naomi. All members of the Flock have been physically and mentally enhanced, and thus can withstand pain much greater than any human. Although torture of this subject is a possible means to an end, there is a better way.”

Naomi raised her eyebrows questioningly.

“The greatest weakness of the Flock is their undying devotion to each other. They will fly across the country to retrieve a missing member, and I'm sure you will find Subject 003 to be a much more willing participant if he is threatened with the well-being of his friends.”

Naomi smiled contentedly, as if she had been hoping for the response given and was proud that Jeb had reached her expectations. “That's more like it.”

Jeb let out the breath he had been holding, and his anxiety began to dissipate.

“Zachariah, collect subjects 002 and 005 immediately,” Naomi commanded. "You know how to find them. The dog and the other are inconsequential. Do with them as you will.”

The balding man smiled the way a creep smiles at a drunk girl. “My pleasure,” he said, "Anything else?"

Jeb’s heart nearly stopped. His waning anxiety was now a thunderous fear in his heart. _The other_ , Naomi had said. The last knowledge they had of Max, she was with Nudge, Angel, Total, and Ari, his son. _The other._ He was inconsequential, Naomi had said. Unimportant. Expendable.

He glanced at her, now organizing Fang’s file. 

"Yes, once you've retrieved those two, you may collect subjects 004 and 006, but the girls are our top priority." 

Jeb controlled his reactions, lest his fear and anger and pain show through his carefully guarded features, but his gaze lingered on Castiel and their eyes met. Cas knew. Jeb’s love for the flock was costing him; it was costing him his son.

He took a breath to calm his nerves.

It was necessary, he told himself. Necessary to save the world.


	19. Murder Cries

“Total, I can carry you part of the way, but not the whole way, it's too hard and I'll get tired.  Ari’s going to have to take you part of the way, okay?” Nudge warned Total as she knelt down to check under the bed at the hotel they were staying at for anything they might have left. As she lifted up the sheet draped over the side, Angel screamed. 

Nudge whipped around in time to see Ari’s eyes widen and look down at the blade protruding from his chest. Nudge clasped her hand over her mouth to stop from screaming as he fell forward, his limp body falling face-down with a loud thud on the thin carpet. 

A balding man Nudge didn't recognize stood behind him, holding a silver blade covered in blood. Ari’s blood, Nudge realized with horror.

“Come with me quietly, and no one else gets hurt,” the man warned.

Nudge glanced over at Angel’s face. It revealed no emotion and was completely calm. Meanwhile, Total was cowering in the corner behind her. 

“Is he...is he dead?” Nudge stuttered, her voice cracking.

“Yep,” the man smiled coldly.

Nudge let out an involuntary cry. Ari was, well he had been awful, working with the Whitecoats, taking Angel, almost killing Fang, but he had turned around and joined them, and had been, well, not terrible. A friend.

“What's wrong,” the man frowned with mock concern. “I thought you hated him.”

Nudge struggled to stay calm. “I didn’t want him dead.”

He shrugged indifferently. “Next one to go is the dog. Now come along,” he held out his hand.

Nudge slowly stood up.

Where's Max when you need her? Nudge felt helpless. Max always told them what to do and got them out of trouble, but now Nudge was the oldest, and Ari was dead and Total and Angel could be killed any second.

What Would Max Do?

Max would fight.

_ Max would protect her Flock at all costs _ , Angel projected into Nudge's thoughts.

Nudge frowned.  _ Not if the cost is one of the Flock. If we fight him, he might just kill us. I don’t think we’re strong enough to beat him, and he has a sword.  _

He has a sword, Nudge realized. This was just plain weird. This man was nothing like they'd faced before. 

_ We can’t just give up; Max wouldn’t give up. _

_ I just want to keep us safe. Going with him isn’t giving up, it’s putting off the fight for another time. _

_ It's your call, _ Angel replied.

If they fought, he would kill them. If they ran, he would find them, and then kill them. The best, and really, the only, option would be sacrificing their freedom. God, Nudge knew she was going to regret this decision.

“We’ll come if you promise not to hurt us.”

“Course not,” he grinned. “An angel never breaks a promise.”

Nudge eyed him warily, then stepped forward. “Where are we going?”

“You'll see,” he smirked. He held up his hand and snapped his fingers. Nudge collapsed in his arms, unconscious. 

Angel tensed up and a hint of fury flashed across her porcelain features. “You promised not to hurt us.” 

“Ahh, she's fine.” He reached out to the little girl, who had since picked up the little black dog and was clutching him tightly to her chest.

He gently stroked her golden blonde curls and mused to himself. “Lilith would love this body.” Then he snapped his fingers and he, Angel, Total, and Nudge vanished.


	20. Born to Die

7:00 am. The radio clicked and the alarm went off, blaring, “ _It was the heat of the moment.”_

Iggy slammed his hand down on the clock. The force of his hit yanked the cord out of the wall and knocked it off the nightstand to land loudly on the floor. He rolled back over and covered his head with a pillow, trying to recall the dream he’d been having.

He had seen Max, either asleep or unconscious, lying in the back of a classic car. Someone had draped a worn leather jacket over her, presumably one of the two guys in the front seat.

They were driving down a road to nowhere, a desolate two-lane highway surrounded by fields of wheat that stretched toward the horizon.

Max woke with a shudder and a scream and the car swerved wildly.

She got a look at the man in the passenger seat and panicked, throwing herself out of the car as it skidded to a stop. Iggy’s perspective changed and all of a sudden he could see what she saw and feel what she felt. His whole body ached as it pressed itself into the burning asphalt, and the sunlight hurt his eyes and stung his skin.

Max dragged herself away from the car. Each move was agony. A door slammed, and Iggy felt her fear, her desperation. A man grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. She was defenseless.

He felt himself leaving her perspective, rising above them, leaving Max behind, all alone. She was now fighting the two men, staggering about as if the mere act of staying upright was exhausting, but she still fought. Try as he might to stay on the ground, Iggy continued to rise into the sky, unable to keep himself from abandoning Max. There were two of them, only one of her, and they had weapons. He struggled to fly down towards her, but the atmosphere itself seemed to pull him away from her. Still, he beat his wings with all his strength, fighting for Max, even as suddenly, it all vanished. The car, the highway, the fields were gone. The sun was no longer overhead but rising from the hills on the horizon, over a city, a vast expanse of skyscrapers.  And ahead of him, he could see Fang, flying, rising, aiming for something, someone.

The man and Fang collided, fought. As they fought, the man transformed. Massive wings appeared, almost out of thin air. His whole form seemed to resonate with energy, and his eyes shone bright, radiant blue. He appeared to Iggy as a glowing, burning mass, a creature too amazing, too powerful to even fathom. Iggy raced towards them, yelled Fang’s name, but the faster he flew, the further away he seemed to be. Fang was yelling at the man, but he couldn’t hear his words; the sound was muted, the sky still. Fang hurtled toward the man, who snapped his fingers. Iggy watched helplessly as Fang crumpled and started to fall. He cried out, but nothing could break through the suffocating silence.

Then, the alarm had gone off and his vision had vanished, replaced by the black, empty world that he could not see.

He didn't usually dream, and the sunrise in his dream had been the first he’d seen for ten years. The last time he'd seen a sunrise was through the barred window of a hallway that smelled like death, in a building in the middle of Nevada.

Iggy kept his eyes closed, determined to go back to sleep and return to Max, to Fang, when Gazzy’s voice pulled him fully into reality.

“Where's Fang?” Gazzy asked.

“What?” Iggy said, sitting up with a start, all hopes of returning to sleep forgotten.

“Where's Fang?” Gazzy repeated, and Iggy heard his footsteps as he jumped out of bed and trod over to the small coffee table. “His laptop’s still here,” Gazzy remarked, “and so’s his backpack.”

Iggy swung his legs out of bed and hurriedly pulled on his jeans. “He probably just went to get coffee or something,” Iggy said, trying to keep the panic out of his voice as he fumbled to lace up his sneakers. “I’ll just call him to make sure.”

“Oh, alright,” Gazzy said, confusion and suspicion evident in his voice.

Iggy headed in the direction of his backpack and ended up ramming into the corner of the bed. He changed direction and ran into a chair. He tried backpedaling and tripped over Gazzy’s shoes left on the floor. He swore and sat down on the bed, rubbing the bruises now forming on his legs. Iggy sensed Gazzy get up and bring his backpack to him.

He muttered his thanks as he unzipped the pocket and fished around inside. His hand grasped a granola bar and he pulled it out and set it next to him on the bed to eat. He dug around once more and found the cheap flip phone.

He handed it to Gazzy and asked, “Can you dial Fang’s number for me?”

“Yup,” Gazzy complied, taking the phone and pressing several buttons. He handed it back to Iggy, who held it to his ear as it rang. It went to voicemail, and Iggy dialed again.

By the third time it went to voicemail, Iggy had finished the granola bar and ordered Gazzy to pack up whatever he needed. “Put Fang’s laptop in his backpack and I’ll carry it,” Iggy mumbled through a mouthful of Oats ‘N Honey.  

“Here,” Gazzy said as he handed him the bag. Iggy stuffed his significantly smaller bag inside of Fang’s and slung it over his shoulder.

“Is Fang okay?” Gazzy said, quickly and just above a whisper.

Iggy bit his lip. Gazzy didn’t need to worry anymore by knowing about his dream.

“I sure fucking hope so, because I’m going to kick his ass for not keeping guard last night,” Iggy replied with a half grin.

He sensed Gazzy relax a bit, and was temporarily relieved. “Let’s go,” he said.  

As they stepped outside, a phone buzzed, emitting a tri-tone. “Isn’t that the same sound Fang’s phone makes?” Iggy asked.

He had scarcely finished his question before Gazzy was shoving a rectangular object into his hand. “Iggyiggyiggy, it’s his cellphone,” Gazzy stammered. It felt rough in his hand, scratched.

“Where was it?”

“Lying on the sidewalk here. I don’t know if you can tell but the screen is shattered.”

“Is there any sign of a fight?” Iggy asked, now on edge.

“Ummmm,” Gazzy paused as he looked around, “Not really. Oh wait, there’s some blood here on the wall.”

 _Fuck_. “Let’s go.”

“But, Iggy, what if he’s hurt?”

“We have to _go_ ,” Iggy said, as he grabbed Gazzy’s hand. “Is there anyone around? What time is it?”

“It’s 7:15 and I see at least three people who would definitely notice if we took off right here.”

“Sounds good to me,” Iggy said, and prepared to jump straight into the air.

Gazzy pulled on his arm. “Iggy, stop!”

Iggy yanked his hand back, “Well, does it really matter anymore? We’re fucked.”

The words were mean, and he regretted it as soon as he said them. He and Max and Fang, it was their job to try to give life a sense of normalcy for the younger ones. Here, Fang had been gone all of a couple hours and he was already screwing it up. Iggy wasn’t great at leading; it’s hard to tell others what to do when you constantly rely on them to see the world. He shoved the broken phone into the pocket of his blue jeans and held his hand out. “I’m sorry. We need to get out of this city, while we still can.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Gazzy demanded, “And what about Fang? If he’s hurt we can’t just leave him!”

“Someone was clearly here for him, not us. Do you really think they would have let us live if they found him here? We need to get away on the off chance they come back. Then, we can try to find him.”

“Fine.” He felt Gazzy’s hand slide into his, and start to pull him down the sidewalk.

“Where are we going, Gazzy?”

“Away.” Gazzy replied curtly. Iggy simply nodded and followed. There wasn’t much more he could do.

They rounded a corner and Gazzy led them down several blocks. Iggy could feel the early morning sunshine on his face. They were heading west.

Gazzy’s pace quickened, and half a block later, he turned sharply and pulled Iggy off the sidewalk.

“Where are we?” Iggy whispered.

“In an alleyway,” Gazzy replied, peeking around the corner and back the way they had come. “There’s a man following us.”

Iggy’s heart rate quickened. “Eraser?” He asked under his breath.

“No,” Gazzy replied, taking another peek. “It’s an old guy in a suit. I don’t like the looks of him, though. C’mon.”

Gazzy grabbed his hand and continued pulling him along. They emerged on the next street over. As he pulled Iggy down the sidewalk, Gazzy became less and less careful about guiding him, until Iggy finally tripped over a lifted sidewalk. He lost his balance and went sprawling, throwing out his hands to catch himself and scraping them in the process.

“Sorry!” Gazzy cried as he turned around. He spotted something in the distance as he grabbed Iggy’s hand to help him up and muttered, “Iggy, we gotta go, he’s still following us.”

“What do you mean? I thought he was the next street over.”

“Well, now he’s only a block behind us.” Gazzy clenched Iggy’s hand and they hurried down the sidewalk. They crossed the street and Gazzy yanked them into another alley. They raced to the other end and emerged on the other side. They crossed this street too, then backtracked, heading away from the sun.

A block later, Gazzy gripped Iggy’s hand and pulled harder. “He’s _still there_.”

“What the fuck,” Iggy murmured.

“There’s a park up ahead, maybe we can take off,” Gazzy suggested.

“Let’s go,” Iggy said, and the two of them started running down the sidewalk.

Gazzy glanced behind them and sped up, “Iggy, he’s gaining on us.”

“Is he running?” Iggy asked, confused, because he couldn’t hear the man’s footsteps on the hard concrete.

“No. I don’t know. He’s just walking, but somehow he’s getting closer,” Gazzy said, just as confused as Iggy.

“Let’s _go_ , Gazzy,” Iggy said, pushing him forward. They sprinted toward the park, running across the street, just as a car turned the corner. Brakes screeched and the car honked at them, but Gazzy kept running. They ran through the gates of the park, onto the lawn, towards a small stand of trees in the far corner.  

“Are there people here?” Iggy asked, though he could hear no one.

Gazzy glanced around the park. “Coast is clear.” He looked over his shoulder, only to find there was no one there. The man was gone.

“And I don’t see the guy anymore I think--” Gazzy said as he turned back around, ready to take off, and nearly ran into the very same man they’d been running from. Gazzy yanked Iggy’s arm, hard, and pulled him to a stop as they stood face to face with the mysterious man.

“Iggy, he’s right in front of us.” Gazzy whispered.

“I know,” Iggy replied, standing straighter, as he slowly reached out, placing his hand on the chest of the man.

“Get your filthy hand off of me, you disgusting mongrel,” the stranger spat, and Iggy withdrew his hand, dropping it at his side, gazing at the individual before them.

“Iggy, what is it?” Gazzy asked under his breath.

“I can...see you,” Iggy murmured. Gazzy’s jaw dropped open.

The man stared Iggy down, only to realize his eyes were pale, cloudy, useless. He chuckled mockingly. “I nearly forgot about you: the poor blind boy. You wouldn’t last a day alone, would you? We should have gotten rid of you years ago.”

Iggy’s fists clenched and Gazzy looked back and forth between the two as the man continued. “Always reliant on your--what do you call yourselves? The Flock? How anthropomorphic of you.”

“I may be blind, but I am not helpless,” Iggy spoke, still staring at the man.

“Iggy, you can see him?” Gazzy asked, grabbing Iggy’s arm and tugging on it to get his attention.

Iggy blinked, unseeing, but somehow still acutely aware of the glowing presence of this... _thing_ , a creature too powerful to even fathom. Amongst the light, he could distinguish four heads and several pairs of wings.

Realization dawned on Iggy and his manner changed completely. “It’s you,” he said, accusing, threatening.

“Me what?” The man replied, annoyed at the simplemindedness of these boys.

“You took Fang.” Iggy accused, voice low, even, and angry.

The creature laughed again. “No, you stupid little boy, I did not.”

“I saw you.” Iggy said, as Gazzy pulled on the sleeves of his T-shirt.

“Iggy, what are you talking about? Who is he?” Gazzy asked, just as Iggy clenched his fist and rammed it right smack in the middle of the mass of light.

The man gasped, whether in shock or in pain, Iggy wasn’t sure, but he reacted in the blink of an eye, punching Iggy in the gut and sending him sprawling onto the grass, still damp from the morning dew. Gazzy clenched his jaw and took off, jumping into the air, and spreading his wings. Iggy slowly picked himself up, wiping grass off his hands onto his jeans as the man approached him again.

“Iggy, let’s go!” Gazzy yelled from above, circling out of reach of the stranger but close enough to be of assistance if needed.

“I’m doing this for Fang,” Iggy spat out as he once again leapt for the man, the figure of light. He wasn’t sure what this creature was, but one thing was certain: he wasn’t human.

“Fang is far out of your reach,” the man laughed as he deflected Iggy’s blows and threw him to the ground.

“What have you done to him? Who are you?” Iggy yelled, as he jumped up and started circling the man. As terrifying as this being appeared, he was just a bully. “You’re an even bigger jerk than the psychopaths who created us in the first place, and considering what they’ve done to me, that’s a pretty fucking spectacular feat,” he yelled.

“Oh, get over your pity party,” he scorned. “So you can’t see? Boo hoo! Big deal! Get over yourself!”

“But. I. Can. See. You.” Iggy said, punctuating each word with a blow to this monstrous creature. On the last word, Iggy launched himself at him and delivered a flying kick to the groin. The man stumbled backwards and lost his balance. For a moment, Iggy stood triumphant, but before he could even register it coming towards him, the creature was inches away from his face.

“Really? You think that will hurt me? _Me_ ?” Iggy looked taken aback, and the man continued, lowering his voice to barely above a whisper. “I am an _angel of the Lord_. You don’t want to be on my naughty list, boy. I can end you just like that.” As he finished speaking, he snapped his fingers, and an invisible force barreled into Iggy like a freight train, casting him into the ground and knocking the breath from his lungs.

Iggy struggled to sit up, taking deep, gasping breaths, but his muscles would not obey and he collapsed on the ground, gazing up at the form of light and power that stood over him. If someone combined all of the horrors he had witnessed in his seventeen short years of life, it would still not be as terrifying as what he now faced.

“Your little friend there, he can’t see what you do,” the being jeered, looking down at the child, the _human_ . “What you see, boy, is my _true_ form, not this revolting meat suit I wear.”

Iggy drew a great, halting breath, and using all his remaining strength, willed himself to a standing position. “Who are you?” he whispered, unsteady on his feet.

“I never would have guessed there was vision left in those useless eyes of yours,” the stranger mused, ignoring his question.

Iggy’s face hardened into a scowl, and he punched the creature square in the jaw. The angel’s head jerked left, and he groaned slightly. He reached up, feeling it with his hand, and narrowed his eyes at the blind, winged boy, a gesture which was entirely lost on Iggy.

“Alright, enough fucking around,” he declared, starting to sound pissed, “it’s time to go home.”

“I don’t have a home,” Iggy lashed out as he struck the creature again, “and it’s because of maniacs like you.”

The man grabbed Iggy’s fist before it could hit home, painfully negating any force behind it like a concrete wall. Iggy grimaced, trying to pull his arm back, but the angel's grip tightened painfully on his hand.

“You do have a home, you ungrateful brat. You just don’t remember it.” He snapped his fingers and Iggy fell unconscious to the ground.

Gazzy swooped down, kicking the stranger in the chest and sending him stumbling backwards. “What did you do to him?” He yelled at the man.

“Nothing worse than what I’m going to do to you...” the angel replied angrily. He snapped his fingers and Gazzy froze, body gone limp, suspended in midair.

“...for now,” he sneered. Zachariah snapped his fingers once more and the three of them vanished.


	21. Glory and Gore

Sam slammed on the brakes as they pulled into the driveway of _Singer Auto Salvage Yard_. The car nearly spun out of control as it decelerated from over 100 mph to a skidding halt.

Sam yanked the keys out of the ignition and jumped out of the car. They stumbled up to the cluttered porch and Sam frantically rang the doorbell.

“Bobby!”

Dean winced at the noise and balled his fists.

There was no response from within as Sam continued pounding the doorbell.

“BOBBY!”

“Sam, I swear to God, if you don’t quit shouting...” Dean said, underlying menace in his voice.

Sam exhaled anxiously as he tapped his foot on the porch impatiently.  

“Fuck it,” he declared and opened the screen door. Just as he reached for the doorknob, the door opened from within.

“I was taking a shit, boys, can’t it wait five seconds?” Bobby took one look at the Winchesters and his tone changed completely. “Holy crap, Sam. Bring him in.”

Dean stumbled in and took a seat on the faded couch as Bobby stepped over a stack of books into the kitchen and started digging through cabinets and drawers, pulling out vials, containers, and herbs.

“Sam, talk to me. What the fuck happened?”

Sam stood in the doorway, fidgeting nervously. “It was a vamp. A girl.”

Bobby slammed a drawer shut and crouched down to rummage through a cupboard. “I think I’ve got all the ingredients for a cure. Do you have her blood?”

Sam shook his head. “No, but I can get some.”

Bobby froze and looked up at the brothers. “What are you saying, Sam?”

“She’s in the car.” Dean spoke up from where he had collapsed on the couch.

Bobby stood and cursed under his breath as he slammed the jars he was holding onto the counter. “Is she restrained?”

“With duct tape, yes.”

“Jesus, Sam, don’t tell me she ain’t still _alive_?” Bobby strode towards Sam, who shoved his hands in his pockets to keep them from trembling.

Sam stared at the floor. “Yes.”

“Fucking _idjits_ ,” Bobby cursed as he strode out onto his porch and grabbed a machete off a bench.

“Bobby stop!” Sam called after him as he followed him out.

“Get back, son. I know you’re a softy for these things, but I’m cutting the bitch’s head off and you can’t stop me. We need her blood.”

“No, Bobby, stop! There’s more to it than that,” Sam yelled, but the hunter payed him no attention. The screen door slammed shut behind them, and Sam turned to see Dean step onto the porch, leaning on the door frame for support as he followed them outside into the dusty sunlight.

Bobby marched towards the Impala, flinging the back door open, where Max lay limp, bound with duct tape. At the sudden movement, her eyes flashed open, and as she took in the scene unfolding before her, she began to struggle in her bonds.

Her eyes were panicked, and her gaze jumped from the grey-haired man blocking the door, holding a machete, hatred in his eyes, to the young man in a leather jacket, stumbling down the porch steps, eyes bloodshot.

Bobby reached in and grabbed Max’s arm, yanking her out of the car and onto the parched dirt. The sun was sinking towards the horizon, and she only saw a flash of light as he raised his blade high over his head and swung.

The machete sliced through the air towards its target, and as it hit flesh, blood spattered onto the Impala’s glossy black finish.

Dean grunted as he struggled against the force of the machete, gripping the blade, his blood dripping onto Max’s tennis shoes.

The duct tape over Max’s mouth did nothing to muffle her as she screamed profanities at both the man who had blocked the blow and the man who had swung it.

Bobby’s jaw dropped as Dean ripped the machete from his hands and flung it across the junkyard, embedding it in the door of a rusted, totaled pickup truck.

“Dean, stay back,” Bobby ordered, but his voice was unsure of itself, and his gaze stayed fixed on Dean’s mouth.

“You can’t kill her,” Dean said quietly, his fists clenched at his side, his right hand dripping blood from where Bobby had struck.

Bobby watched warily as Dean leaned down, grabbed Max’s arm, and pulled her to her feet. She shook off his hand, calling him several crude names, and loosening the duct tape over her mouth in the process. He frowned at it and ripped it off in one quick motion. She winced, licking her lips.

Max stared Bobby down; she stood defiantly, donned in blood-soaked shirt and ripped jeans, tangled hair framing her face in the golden light.

It took a second before Bobby realized what his eyes were seeing. He opened and closed his mouth as he gazed at her.

“Just leave me the fuck alone,” she spat, as she shook out her wings, spreading them wide and stretching them towards the sky. The feathers themselves appeared to glow, whites and browns and tans contrasting in a spectacular array of color. For a second, Bobby could have sworn her eyes flashed a brilliant blue.

In one swift movement, Max pushed against the air itself, jumping with all her strength, and rose several feet in the air. In the blink of an eye, Dean grabbed her arm and pulled her back down to earth, wings still beating.

Teeth gnashing furiously, she used her downward momentum to slam her feet into his stomach. Dean groaned, but kept a death grip on her arm. She thrashed in his arms, twisting away from him, trying to gain altitude. One of her wings hit him on the side of his head on a downstroke; his head whipped to the side and he lost his balance, falling to the ground, and his grip loosened. She wrenched her arm free, but Dean grabbed her ankles, and she, too, crashed to the ground.

Sam and Bobby leapt forward, grabbing onto her arms, her shoulders, her torso, but she only continued to struggle. She twisted around, snarling at them, fangs bared. 

“SHit,” Sam swore as she tried to bite his hand that held her shoulder.

“Well if you two dumbasses aren’t going to kill her, we at least need to lock her up,” Bobby said.

“The panic room,” Dean mumbled as he stood, hand covering his mouth.

Sam glanced down at Max’s furious face, and saw the blood craze in her eyes. “She’ll be safe there,” was his reply.

“She’s not the one we’ll be saving,” Bobby pointed out as she tried to bite off several of his fingers.

“Let me help you there,” Dean offered as he got to his feet and grabbed her legs. Bobby glanced hesitantly at Dean to see if he was turning, but his mouth was tightly shut, no fangs to be seen.

Together, they carried her struggling form up the porch and through the living room. She continued to snarl and beat her wings, hitting Sam, knocking books off tables, and dripping blood on the already stained carpet. They had quite a bit of trouble getting her through the basement door and down the stairs, and as they approached the panic room, Dean set Max down on the concrete floor to open the massive iron door. As it swung open, Sam and Bobby pulled Max to her feet, but she twisted out of their grip, crashing into the wall. She backed away, trying to use the wall to help herself stand, but Dean grabbed her arm and lead her to the chamber. She resisted with all her strength, pulling away from him. Dean let go, and she tripped over her own feet, falling backwards, slamming into the floor, her head hitting the concrete with a resounding crack. She let out a small whimper as her eyes went wide, then blurred, and her vision became distant, unfocused.

Dean wrapped his arms under her armpits and dragged her into the panic room. As she passed the threshold, her body convulsed and she started gasping as if all the air had been instantaneously sucked from her lungs. Her eyes snapped open, alight with pain, and as Dean glanced down at her, they seemed almost to glow.

He set her down in the center of the devil’s trap that lined the floor, and she collapsed, curled up with her knees to her chest, wings spread behind her, no longer struggling, but silently trembling.

Dean took one last glance before he turned and walked out, slamming the door shut and locking it firmly in place.

 


End file.
